


On the Importance of Lunar Influences in Gardening

by Guede



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, BAMF Sheriff Stilinski, BAMF Stiles, Bondage, Cock Warming, Courting Fail, Courtship, Dom/sub Undertones, Full Shift Werewolves, Gardens & Gardening, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Miscommunication, Outdoor Sex, Pining, Sex Magic, Sex Toys, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Topping from the Bottom, Unrequited Crush, Werewolf Courting, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 09:12:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6188668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh, it’s you again,” Stiles sighs.  He puts down his basket and drops the bunch of onions into it, and then dusts off his hands.  “Can’t you get your own strawberries?  I mean, I have it on good authority that wild strawberries?  They’re a thing.  They exist.  They’re out there.”</p><p>“But Stiles,” says the werewolf dangling by one foot from the tree, sticky red smears around his mouth and all over his fingers.  “<i>Your</i> berries are so juicy, so ripe.  Those ones in the woods are mere passing indulgences compared to the royal feast you have in your garden.”</p><p>Genii loci Stiles and his father run a community garden, and it’s all good, except for the werewolf who keeps sneaking over the fence to raid Stiles’ strawberry patch (and the hunter who’s constantly hanging around his father).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Oh, it’s you again,” Stiles sighs. He puts down his basket and drops the bunch of onions into it, and then dusts off his hands. “Can’t you get your own strawberries? I mean, I have it on good authority that wild strawberries? They’re a thing. They exist. They’re out there.”

“But Stiles,” says the werewolf dangling by one foot from the tree, sticky red smears around his mouth and all over his fingers. “ _Your_ berries are so juicy, so ripe. Those ones in the woods are mere passing indulgences compared to the royal feast you have in your garden.”

Stiles makes a face at him, because honestly, he’s heard drunken travelling bards be less flowery. And sure, the werewolf’s hot and all, what with the twinkling eyes and the little cleft in his chin that turns his smirk from arrogant to slightly rakish, and the broad-shouldered, flat-muscled physique that looks really, really nice when all stretched out naked from a tree branch. But does that really make up for the stupid things he says?

“You’re ridiculous. I should just leave you up there,” Stiles says. He moves his hands to the linen wrap that’s all he wears and the werewolf keeps smiling, but a low, hungry growl rolls out from behind those big, white teeth.

One flex of a foot, and the rope’s severed. The werewolf flips around and drops onto his hands and knees, then slinks across the couple feet of intervening space, sunlight drenching his skin, slicking him over with dampened gold as it catches on his sweat. He flicks his head to move a curl out of his eye, then sniffs so very delicately at Stiles.

Starting at the knee, then moving upwards from there, his breath hot and moist and clinging to Stiles’ skin so that starts to itch. Pausing as the linen slips softly past his head, a deep, satisfied note briefly entering his purring, and then inching on up—and around, stealthily, till he’s whuffing up the inside thigh, using long, ticklish breaths that feel almost as wet as a tongue would.

“So cruel,” the werewolf murmurs. His nose almost into Stiles’ groin, puffing air into the loosening folds of Stiles’ wrap, he looks up through lowered lashes, all mock-humility and the teasing flicker of his tongue behind his teeth. “Can’t one simply pay their respects to the local divinities?”

“This is _so_ not respectful,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “Also, let’s be real here. Genii loci aren’t about the worship, okay, we’re just here. We’d do our thing even if you idiots didn’t even notice us. Actually, I think life would be a lot easier if you _didn’t_ know about us. I know my strawberries would like it better.”

And then he drops his wrap. The werewolf laughs as he curls his hands up around the backs of Stiles’ thighs. “Oh, Stiles,” he says. “I am so sorry, I truly am. Let me make it up to you.”

“Please let me you’re not about to make an eating jo—” Stiles gets out, before they go over.

It’s been a good growing season so far, just enough rain to keep the earth soft, enough sun to keep it warm, so as the werewolf slides over him, the ground’s almost as comfortable as a bed. And certainly it’s got some attractions that inside doesn’t: the sweet fragrance of the grasses crushing under them, the haphazard bright burst of a wildflower pressed between their rutting bodies.

The way the dirt soaks up their sweat. It leaves soft brown streaks in its place, but the smears are cooling, taking away the heat as they dry up and turn to a powder that encourages their hands to wander back, brush it away, keep moving over their bodies to chase that elusive, maddening itch. And the sunlight, of course, dazzling where it slants sideways into the werewolf’s eyes, filling them with sky and lightning, and the gentle east wind rolling over their bare bodies, drawing out shivers that push them into each other.

This part’s always good, Stiles will admit. Half a day of hard work behind him, muscles cramping from squatting and bending over deep-rooted weeds, wilted plants, inexplicably sluggish shoots, and another half-day of the same yet to come. So spreading out on the warm, yielding earth for an hour or so, it’s good. Werewolf nuzzling at his throat, firm hands moving over his body, and then a good, hard climax to shake his body loose from its workaday aches. It’s good.

It’s also quick, though as usual, the werewolf’s trying to slow him down as he gets back up, shakes out his linen wrap. Those same fingers paw at his ankle and then try to sneak up his thigh to dabble in the come streaked there, and when he slaps at them, the werewolf has the temerity to look wounded.

“Okay, fine, I’ll let the strawberries go,” Stiles says. “ _Again_. But I’ve got to get back to work. I can’t just lie here all day.”

“Whyever not?” the werewolf says. He tries for Stiles’ ass this time, and when he gets soundly smacked for it, he hisses and then pulls himself up into a sitting position. He’s being oddly persistent, even by his standards. “I see you every day out in the fields, you know. Surely another hour—”

“Of course you’d say that,” Stiles snorts. He finishes securing his wrap and then snatches up his basket, stalking off. “You’re all the same, none of you ever give a damn. It’s not like these plants grow themselves. Hunters, honestly.”

* * *

When Stiles comes in, his father’s brows jump and then he turns to snag a spare towel. He tosses that to Stiles and then goes back to inspecting the row of cabbage heads he has set up on the table.

“Rabbits again?” Stiles says.

His father sighs. “Yep. I don’t know where they’re getting in, but we’ll have to find that hole and patch it soon, or else we’ll lose the whole crop. And…I hate to ask, but werewolves again?”

“I know, I know, and I swear, Dad, next time I’ll just boot him back over the wall.” Stiles puts his basket down and then steps behind some crates so he can discreetly wipe down his legs.

“You know it’s not that I mind you’re, er, yeah,” his dad grunts, with ducked head and flushed face. He rubs at his forehead, ever-hopeful that that will actually do something to smooth out those worry wrinkles. “But if you’re going to do that, can you at least keep it away from the fruit? Even if we get any strawberries, I don’t think that we can in good conscience put them out at market.”

Stiles tosses the dirty towel into the washbin and then comes back out to empty out his basket. “It’s not like that, Dad. He’s just…he’s kind of just there, and okay, okay, no details but it’s not like he’s coming through the front gate any time soon, so don’t worry about it. And really, seriously, next time I’m not just going to fool around, I’ll really—”

The gate chimes and his father dashes out to answer it, so quickly that he doesn’t even put down the cabbage in his hand. And then Stiles sees his shoulders slump through the doorway, and puts down the bunch of radishes.

“Chris,” his father says, with the same long-suffering tone he uses whenever Stiles has accidentally made another sinkhole. “How can I help you.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you,” Chris says. As always, he’s wincing and shuffling his feet, and at the same time sneaking forlorn glances in hopes that Stiles’ father really isn’t that disappointed to see him. “I just…so I know the market’s not for a few more days, but I was hoping…oh, rabbit troubles?”

He’s looking at the cabbage in Stiles’ father’s hand. Stiles’ dad hitches his shoulders, spinning the cabbage like he might actually try and tuck it behind him and pretend it doesn’t exist, and then he sighs and straightens up and shrugs. “Yeah, well, gardening. Rabbits happen.”

“I could—I started out on things like rabbits,” Chris says. Somehow he sounds both more tentative and more secure; he should know about that, being the resident master hunter and all, but he also knows how Stiles and his father feel generally about hunters. “I could take a look, see if I have anything that might help.”

“Thanks, but Stiles and I can deal with it,” Stiles’ father says, and _his_ tone goes downright glacial. “So what did you want?”

Chris settles into a crestfallen expression, fidgeting with the bundle under his arm. He clears his throat a few times, and then quietly offers up said bundle. “Just some root vegetables,” he says. “For stewing. We’re out.”

Stiles’ father sighs and takes the bundle. He turns it over in his hands a few times, and then goes back into the shed. The bundle gets plopped on the sorting table and then he grabs one of the spare baskets. He fills it up with vegetables from the bins, pulling out carrots and potatoes and turnips and beets, weighing this one and discarding that one, and Chris watches him from the doorway, wistfulness shading into something a little hotter, a little more embarrassed as the man’s eyes drop from the back of Stiles’ father’s head to his shoulders and arms.

When Stiles’ father comes back, Chris abruptly looks at the floor, scratching awkwardly at his cheek, and then he blanches at the basket Stiles’ father offers. “What? No, just—just a few—”

“Well, if you’re going to bring something like that, you get your trade’s worth,” Stiles’ father says pointedly. “That’s how _we_ work.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean…thanks, John,” Chris says, finally giving up. He takes the basket and he’s still looking guilty about it when Stiles’ father shuts the gate in his face.

Then Stiles’ father comes back inside, shaking his head and running one hand irritably through his hair. He unpicks the string around Chris’ bundle, then lets it unravel to show a beautiful deerskin. It’s that rare milky white color, like the animal had been wearing moonlight instead of fur, and honestly, is worth a lot more than just one basket of vegetables.

“I guess just put aside some of the stone fruit for him to make up the difference, come market day,” Stiles’ father grunts. He looks at it, his fingertips almost touching it and curling down like that’s what they’re longing to do, and then he wraps it quickly back up. “I don’t know what the hell goes through his head. What are we going to do with this? It’ll just get covered with dirt like everything else in here.”

“Hey,” Stiles objects, because he does most of the cleaning.

His father gives him a nod, but then lets his gaze wander around the room. Which is a storage shed for produce, so frankly, no dirt at all should be a bad sign, but then his dad looks at their linen hip-wraps, which are so stained that they come straight out of the wash a light tan color, and okay, fine, fair point. They’re genii loci for a community garden, they live with the earth and the sun and the plants, not with gold and fine silk and marble. What are they going to do with it?

“I guess I’d better just be happy he’s not bringing it because he accidentally killed something upstream of the well again,” his father finally mutters. He tucks the skin under his arm and crosses the shed, then steps out towards their house. “Go check the cabbages this afternoon, all right? The apples are a mess, some of the supports snapped and I’ll probably be rebuilding them all day—oh, well, I’ll get back over this evening and help you put up the snare again. If you’re planning on it.”

“Of course I’m planning on it,” Stiles says, making a face. “Dad, come on. Hunters are all the same, always wandering around and never sticking around once they’ve caught something. I’m not counting on anything there.”

“Well, all right, fine,” his father says, with a flap of his hand. “See you later, Stiles.”

* * *

Okay, so as a genius loci Stiles is more than a little biased about lifestyles. That doesn’t mean he’s a complete bigot, and he does have friends on the hunting side of things, because he recognizes that they’re not all flaky, careless, blood-on-the-brain assholes. Just most of them.

“You, my buddy, my best pal, you aren’t, but you have to admit, you’re kind of a weird werewolf,” Stiles says, as he and Scott carefully pad down the rows of cabbages, looking for rabbit tracks. “I mean, how many werewolves would say their favorite food is roasted corn on the cob?”

Scott shrugs politely, because also, he hates badmouthing anybody, when pretty much every other hunting type Stiles has met absolutely loves shitting on the competition, and don’t even get started on the rest of their own group. “Well, I think a lot more people have been changing their views on vegetables and fruits since your family moved in,” he says. He pauses, cocking his head and sniffing, and then shakes it. “Nope, squirrel. Um, is squirrel—”

“Eh, they’re all right over here, don’t really do leafy things. Berries, we worry about, but they eat enough insects we generally just write off the losses,” Stiles says. Unlike stupid berry-gobbling werewolves who think great sex is a valid exchange, and okay, Stiles is not letting that asshole ruin his afternoon. “Well, I guess we’ll see how long that lasts.”

“It’s been almost a year,” Scott says, blinking. “I think it’s safe to say that we all like the garden now.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, but what about when we leave?” Stiles says.

Just then, he spots a flash of brown amid all the green. Stiles jerks forward, then hops over the cabbages, bouncing from row to row as he chases the rabbit down. Normally he’d register the same as the surrounding produce, but Scott’s smell must have rubbed off on him, because the thing zigs and zags and finally does a desperate little fillip trying to get away from him. But just because Stiles grows stationary things doesn’t mean he can’t grab a moving one, and he does, scooping the rabbit out of the air as neatly as he would a falling peach.

He turns around, pleased with himself, and he’s going to tell Scott to get ready to follow once he’s got the tracking spell cast, when he realizes that Scott is still across the field, staring in horrified surprise.

“Leave?” Scott stammers. He lurches forward, then winces and jerks his foot back up as Stiles hisses. Too late, the cabbage is well and truly squished, and Scott is muttering apologies about it as he leaps over to join Stiles. “Wait, but….leave? But you said genii loci, I mean…I thought that’s what you—you know, you’re the spirit of the place. So you—you _are_ the place, and…”

“Well, yeah, but we’re not _this_ place,” Stiles says, frowning. “We’re just on loan, remember? Your local druids invited us in after you had that whole big fight with the darach, to help purify the ground and calm down nature and not have all of nature so pissed off at you. We weren’t going to be here forever.”

“Oh,” Scott says, blinking hard. “Oh.”

If anything, he looks even more distressed now, and Stiles feels a little bad, even though it’s not like he and his father have lied about it, at any time whatsoever. “One growing year, that’s what you all asked for, just to get things nice again.”

“Oh, yeah, I know…I mean, I remember, now that you mention it, but things have been going so well and nobody’s mentioned you moving on…right?” Scott suddenly straightens up, shoulders set, jaw up, because he might be a young, kind of weird, kind of looked askance by his fellows, werewolf, but damned if he’s going to let anybody be pushed around (which is a big reason why Stiles likes him). “Because if they have, just let me know and I’ll bring it straight to the alpha, because that’s not right.”

“No, nobody’s said anything, but then, nobody said anything about us staying either,” Stiles shrugs, petting the rabbit. Its poor little heart is thumping into his palm every time Scott looks its way, and sometimes Stiles just wishes that the genius loci gig came with the ability to talk to animals.

Sadly, however, he is not a faun or satyr or nymph, or anything like that, and so the best he can do is just to concentrate as much as possible on feeling like a nice, peaceful, leaf-filled and werewolf-less spot. Which does work, but then Scott looks at him again and the rabbit hides its head in Stiles’ chest, and now Scott is looking mournful. And maybe not just about the rabbit (Scott is weirdly concerned about the feelings of things he eats).

“They haven’t?” Scott says. He scrubs at his hair, blinking hard again, and then he shakes himself. “Well, that’s just…huh. Okay. Well, you’re not—you’re not leaving _now_ , right?”

“What? In the middle of harvest season, are you kidding me?” Stiles says. “Of course not. We’ll go when winter comes. Now look, are you going to help, or are you going to keep scaring the bunny till its itty bitty heart explodes?”

“Stiles,” Scott says, pained. “Okay, okay, put the rabbit down and let’s do this.”

“What I said,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. He gives the rabbit a last pet, then squats to put it down. “All right, you little cabbage swiper, let’s see where you’re getting in.”

* * *

Between the two of them, Stiles and Scott find a couple new tunnels under the fence that they fill in. Stiles is seriously thinking they might just have to put in raised beds so next year, the people can grow cabbages in those, because it doesn’t seem to matter how deep they sink the fence, the rabbits manage to burrow under it. 

He’s going to bring it up to his dad when he gets home that night, but he gets a little distracted by some fungus-ridden plums his father’s left sitting out and they end up debating what to do about it for most of dinner. His dad is talking about how if the problem is really bad, they might just have to root up all the trees, but then Stiles reminds him that grafting’s a little too tricky to leave to amateurs, and that would seem like the perfect segue to cabbages. But instead, when his father asks if there’s anything else, what Stiles thinks of Scott’s surprise.

“So I think a lot of people have forgotten we’re not supposed to be here forever,” Stiles says, chin on his hand. He briefly describes his and Scott’s conversation, then raises his brows. “Silly, right? I mean, it’s not like we ever said different.”

“Yeah,” his dad says, but he’s a little too thoughtful about it. “Yeah…I mean, no, we haven’t, you’re right about that.”

Stiles frowns at his father. “What.”

“What,” his dad says right back, and then he makes a face as he sweeps the rotten plums into the bag for the compost heap. “Don’t give me that look, kid, you got it from me in the first place.”

“Yeah, well, mutual immunity and I wanna know if you’re in talks with the druids or something and didn’t tell me,” Stiles mutters.

“What? No, of course not,” his father says, with enough vehemence that Stiles knows he’s telling the truth. Then he looks a little harder at Stiles, with an odd, kind of regretful look in his face. “Listen, Stiles, I know…I know it’s been a little strange, working this hard and not settling in, and if it’s…if you’re having problems with it, I want you to tell me.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you, Dad,” Stiles says, blinking. “Are you kidding me? Don’t I always make sure that you know my thoughts and opinions on everything, in far too much detail?”

His dad snorts. “Depends. Seriously, though…if you’re having problems, I can send you back early.”

“Nah, I’m all right. I mean, they’re annoying, don’t get me wrong, it’s _definitely_ a hunter world around here, and I gotta say I’ve got my doubts about how well they’ll keep this up after us.” Stiles pauses to grimace, because fine, he might not be permanently attached to the place, but like his dad said, they _have_ put a lot into it, and even if they weren’t what they are, they’d feel something just by virtue of that. And it’s going to sting more than a little if it all goes back to wilderness. “But it’s not like I hate it or anything. The garden’s great, you know—I think we did a really good job.”

“Yeah, me too,” his father says, smiling. His shoulders also sag a little in relief; he’s been extra-touchy lately about that sort of thing, for some reason. Sometimes Stiles almost thinks his dad’s trying to feel him out about something.

Except that Stiles isn’t really sure what that would be, aside from not going back. But that can’t be it. He knows his father gets just as frustrated with the prevailing attitude around here as he does, and no matter how great the garden is, if the community isn’t with it, then there’s no point in them staying. A genius loci _is_ the place, like Scott said, and you can’t be the place if you don’t love it.

Not that they’re really loving their old garden either, Stiles will admit, deep down in the back of his mind. Ever since his mother died, that place just hasn’t been the same for either of them, and they’ve all suffered, him and his father and their last community. That’d been the whole reason they’d taken up the druids’ request in the first place—they got a change of location, to see if just clearing their heads in a new place did anything, and their old community didn’t have to put up with grieving genii loci.

That said, their old community also was steadfastly farming, and nobody ever had to explain to _them_ why, say, beating the shit out of each other all the time was bad for permanent settlement type of things, like his father has to do every other week here. So Stiles doesn’t even bother worrying about how the old garden will look; he knows it’ll be in perfect shape when they get back.

“Well, all right, we’ve got a few more months yet,” his father says. “Let’s not put down the trowels yet. And just ignore whatever you’re hearing. You already know that they’re all clueless here.”

“Tell me about it,” Stiles sighs. “Just in one ear, out the other, you know? I bet next week, me and Scott will be having the same conversation all over again.”

* * *

The next day, Stiles goes about his usual routine and he’s halfway down the strawberries when he realizes that something’s different. He frowns at the untouched ground, the neat lines of bushes heavy with scarlet, shining berries, and then he turns around and he hurries over to the snare.

Which is empty. Just set up and ready to go, as he’d left it last night, and here it’s mid-afternoon and nothing’s set it off.

Stiles pokes around, just in case the werewolf’s just found a different way to get in, but he doesn’t find anything. And then he goes back to the strawberries and walks through the whole patch, and it doesn’t look like anybody bigger than a squirrel’s been at it. No bushes torn out at the roots, no dropped, squashed berries, no carelessly clawed-up potholes. It’s odd, but…well, he’s got a lot of work to do. Market day is coming up, and demand _has_ risen sharply, and so he’s already going to be up late tonight, trying to get in enough stock. He doesn’t have time to ponder about whimsical, faithless werewolves.

Besides, he finally, _finally_ gets a strawberry himself. And they’re good, he thinks, popping another into his mouth. He licks the juice off his fingers, smiling, and then—he turns around.

He could’ve sworn he’d heard a sigh. But nope, the patch is clear, the fence is unscaled, and he has work to do. Stiles shrugs it off and hefts his basket, and sets to picking.

* * *

The community didn’t have its own market before his father and he had moved in—didn’t even really have a general meeting place, barely managed to share wells and springs—so when they built the garden, they made sure to leave a nice big pavilion in the front. Most of the week it’s empty space, home to nothing more than the occasional skittering leaf.

But on market days, Stiles and his father and a few of the more helpful locals put up poles and stretch canvas between them to make shaded aisles on three sides of the pavilion. Underneath they set out crates and crates of the garden’s bounty: piles of red and yellow potatoes, crisp radishes and carrots that Stiles scrubbed till they gleam like new coins. Bushels of apples and stonefruit, smaller baskets of berries in the front that leave dark patches of juice in the dust when they’re lifted. Bundles of corn and celery, and a whole stretch of leafy heads of every variety, from everyday cabbage to jewel-toned rainbow kale.

In return, the hunters bring whatever they can. They at least understand that much, that you can barter instead of just slaughtering each other for whatever you want, and Stiles supposes it’s not their fault that they don’t happen to have anything particularly useful to Stiles and his father. Meat, well, okay, occasionally that’s something he and his father eat. Hides and sinew…they needed some at first for their bedding, and for making bags, but they’ve got cotton and flax growing in the garden, and if you’re sweating steadily all day, as opposed to in short bursts after chasing down prey, then linen’s a lot better than leather.

But Stiles misses getting seeds for new varieties that he can try out. He misses dairy, and eggs—genii loci don’t eat like humans, but they do eat—but what he misses the most, to be honest, is people bringing him enough scraps and manure for the compost heap that he doesn’t have to go out scavenging in the forest for wild animal dung every week. That takes so much time and he doesn’t get nearly as much as a single dairy farmer could give him, and it’s just one more frustration on top of so many.

Still, he admits that the community’s been pretty generous with what they have, even if a lot of it is just piling up unused in their back shed, and so he tries to keep smiling whenever yet another stack of wild boar chops is dropped in front of him.

But it’s hard. So when there’s a thump in front of him, near the end of the day, he can’t quite muster the energy to raise his head. “Thanks, and what are you looking for?” he sighs.

“A picnic,” says the werewolf.

Stiles looks up. “What?”

The werewolf is…is dressed, for one thing. Well, okay, that’s not that weird. They might run around naked in the woods but when shifters come into town for stuff like the market, they wear clothes like everybody else. And the werewolf, Stiles can’t help but notice, looks just as good in a soft white shirt, the front of it loosely laced so that his throat and collarbones and a bit of chest show, and tight trousers, as he does without any of that. He leans over the table, planting his palms on the top, and even though Stiles has seen his bare arms, for some reason the way his sleeves stretch tautly around them is interesting.

“A picnic,” the werewolf says again, and he’s not smiling, which _is_ weird. He’s never been anything but smiling and nonchalant, and now he’s unsmiling and looking intently down at Stiles. “I’d like to take you out to my family’s estate and show you the grounds. We should have done that ages ago, and I am very sorry that we’ve neglected our duties as good hosts, but if you’ll allow me to correct that now, I assure you, you won’t regret it.”

He’s still kind of long-winded, and Stiles feels justified in needing a moment to sort all through that. And, while he’s doing that, he happens to catch Scott running up, fending off another werewolf who’s trying to grab his arm. Scott pauses upon seeing what’s going on, looking terribly guilty, and then he starts gesturing madly.

“I…um…well, that’s nice of you, but I don’t know why I need to see your part of the forest,” Stiles says, trying to angle his gaze like he’s looking at the werewolf, when he’s actually trying to understand Scott’s hand motions. “I mean, we looked all over when we got here, and unless you’re going to burn out a big patch or something like that, this was definitely the only place where a garden was going to work.”

The werewolf looks puzzled. Then he sets his shoulders and okay, there’s the smarmy smile, as he not-so-subtly nudges the bundle he’d set down. “Oh, no, I think there’s a misunderstanding,” he says smoothly. “This isn’t about your work—which has been stellar, believe me, we all appreciate it very much. But this is a little more personal.”

“Personal?” Stiles says. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his father frowning and starting to pick his way through the potatoes. But then his dad stops and…oh, figures, Chris is always lurking around him and the man’s popped up again, and his father has that expression that means he’s going to yell at Chris for trying to suck them into the werewolf feud stuff again.

“Yes,” the werewolf says. “Stiles, this is my formal request to open courtship with you.”

Scott freezes, and then sighs heavily and drops his head into his hands, while the werewolf who’d been trying to yank him away just stares and stares, with huge poleaxed eyes. That one’s some kind of relation to the one in front of Stiles, a nephew or a cousin or something, and normally he’s always going around with a face like he _likes_ people like Chris punching it, so Stiles can’t help a snort at how weird the man looks now.

And then he remembers what is actually happening, and he snorts again. “What? Are you joking?”

The werewolf in front of him goes kind of rigid. Not with rage or fear or anything, it’s just…like he literally doesn’t understand what Stiles is saying, like it’s a foreign language. He blinks a few times, and then, still looking confused, he puts his hand on his bundle and just flat-out slides it towards Stiles.

“No, I’m not, I’m quite serious. We’ve known each other for a while and I find us to be quite compatible, and…” he tries. He’s still smiling, but his tone isn’t quite as confident.

“Um, what, we just have sex instead of me tying you up and shoving you in the compost heap for stealing my fruit,” Stiles says. “That’s not knowing each other, much less a compatibility test. I mean, I’m pretty sure mating rabbits are pickier than that.”

“Stiles,” his father says, finally making it over. With Chris in tow, but his father has Chris by the arm and he’s squeezing that every time Chris so much as twitches in the werewolf’s direction (Chris looks very torn about it, and so Stiles can’t look at his face for long because it’s just as bizarre as the werewolf nephew-cousin whatever). “Is everything all right?”

“I have no idea,” Stiles says. He scrubs at the side of his face, which is heating up because yeah, right, _market_ day, the whole town is actually standing around watching too, and then he pokes at the bundle. “I mean…and what is this, like a courting gift?”

Now the werewolf looks like he’s wishing he had done this somewhere else. But to his credit, he straightens his shoulders and raises his chin and irons out his voice into silk again, and gives it another stab. “Yes. The first of many.”

“Uh, right…” Stiles finally looks at it. He frowns at the wet patches soaking through the cloth, and then he actually unwraps it. “…that is, no. No, seriously, this is a…did you give me a heart? Is this a deer or a—you know what, I don’t even want to know. Just, what the hell am I supposed to do with it?”

“It’s…it’s a demonstration that I’ll be an excellent provider,” is what the werewolf finally goes with, after some interesting facial twitches.

“But I don’t need a deer whatever heart!” Stiles snaps, jerking to his feet. His father tries to say something, but he ignores it and just shoves the heart back over the table. “I just—I mean, seriously? Seriously? You’ve _been_ in the garden how many times? And yeah, fine, it was for sex and fruit but did you once, _once_ , see anything resembling a deer heart in there? No! Because it’s a garden! And if you paid attention to a single damn thing, you’d—oh, never mind, what am I saying, you don’t know any better.”

“He means,” his father breaks in, grabbing Stiles’ shoulder and pushing him back down. Then he steps up to the table, so that he’s both slightly in front of Stiles and also putting a little distance between himself and Chris, who looks like it’s absolutely clawing him up to not say anything. “Thank you, that’s flattering, but I don’t think we’re really…we’re not…look, we’re not interested. Thanks, but no thanks.”

The werewolf is silent. He’s…he’s trying to keep his face cool and calm, but Stiles can tell that a lot of emotion is rolling around underneath it, and actually, at least a little seems to be disappointment. Which weirdly makes Stiles feel bad, but…no, that’s stupid. He thinks about it and he hasn’t once said anything about courting or even liking.

“I am very sorry to hear that,” the werewolf finally says. He takes a deep breath, and then puts his hand out.

Chris inhales sharply too and the werewolf looks over, his eyes narrowing, and then sniffs contemptuously as he just picks up the heart. Stiles’ father doesn’t miss any of that, and leans forward over the table, while under it, he’s giving Chris a hard kick on the ankle.

“However, I see that I haven’t made the best presentation, and I would like a chance to try again,” the werewolf suddenly goes on. And he bends down before Stiles’ father can react, catching Stiles’ eye. “Stiles, please, I _have_ been paying attention, it’s simply that I didn’t realize we—I was in a hurry. My fault, I’ve done badly, but I can do better. I _will_ do better.”

Of course, then he turns around and walks away before Stiles can say yea or nay to that. “Right,” Stiles’ father says slowly, sounding just as irritated as Stiles feels. “Great.”

“If you need some wolfsbane,” Chris starts.

“Oh, and don’t you go on now,” his father snaps. “I don’t know what just happened, but I do know that it’s not anything we need to go to war over. Honestly, don’t you people think any other way?”

Chris flinches, and then he’s going to say something else when Scott finally comes up, scruffing the back of his head in shame. 

“I am so sorry,” he says. “I had no idea that was going to happen. I just—I just mentioned to Alpha Hale what you said, about nobody asking you to stay, and—”

“What?” Chris says sharply. “Wait, what, you’re leaving?”

“Dad,” Allison hisses urgently, popping out from behind Scott. Those two have been spending a lot of time together lately and Chris…knows it, judging by how he’s looking at Scott.

But he pushes that away—with a visible effort—and he’s also pushing off his own daughter as he turns to Stiles’ father. Who takes it all in, then holds up his hand.

“All right, market’s closed,” he calls out. “Wrap it up, we’re done.”

* * *

Scott still looks very embarrassed, though after Stiles’ dad got his mom over and they both spent some time assuring him he’s not responsible for the whole rest of the pack, he’s not looking so much like he thinks he ended the world. “I don’t know,” he says again. “It’s just…I mean, I’m going to miss you, and we really need you too, and anyway, I just thought that Alpha Hale should know—”

“Yeah, I guess we would’ve had to mention it eventually,” Stiles’ father mutters, with a sharp look at Stiles.

Who isn’t so selfish that he’s going to be mad at his friend for not wanting him to go, even if that means they’ve now got some weird…courtship thing to deal with, so…Stiles sighs and nods and gives Scott a reassuring smile.

Scott smiles back weakly. “I guess I should’ve waited, but I wasn’t thinking,” he sighs. “I saw them yesterday, and just—kind of blurted it out, and honestly, I didn’t think they were going to…I thought they’d be upset too, but not like that.”

“Like what, baby?” his mom coaxes.

“Like…well, Alpha Hale dropped her shawl, and then yelled at Laura to get Alan in front of her immediately, what was he thinking, and then Peter took off and I didn’t think it was related at all, but I saw him going to market this morning with the heart and I _knew_ you two were—I know you don’t think it’s anything, Stiles, but he was going right for you,” Scott rattles off nervously, squeezing his mom’s hand. “And then I ran after him and…well, you know. Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Scott,” Stiles’ father mutters into his hand, which he’s rubbing all over his face as if that might massage out the tension in it. He pinches the bridge of his nose, then pulls his head up and offers Scott’s mother a tight smile. “Well, looks like we’ll be…we’ll need to get ready for some visitors, and I’m sure you—”

“Oh, absolutely, we’ll just get out of your way,” Scott’s mom says, hustling Scott out of the chair. She pauses just long enough to give Stiles’ dad a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, and then she and Scott get the hell out of there.

Stiles’ dad closes the gate and then drops onto an empty crate and looks at Stiles. “Well, I guess they really aren’t excited about us leaving,” he says.

“No kidding, Dad, I never would’ve guessed, I mean, what with the trying to _marry_ me to stop it and all and wow, I know it’s a hunting area but seriously? I thought that sex was supposed to be the _one_ place where they’re actually kind of sensible?” Stiles snaps, getting up from his crate. He kicks at a loose clod of dirt, then winces as it breaks open and scatters its rich, dark, perfectly grow-worthy bits all over the pavilion.

“Look, Stiles, I know they’re different but we’re not here to pass judgment,” Stiles’ dad starts half-heartedly. Then there’s a knock on the gate and he looks over, and then lets out a disgusted noise. “Oh, honestly, isn’t there anything that damn man won’t take as an excuse to talk about hunting?”

Stiles clears his throat. “Ahem, judging?”

“Shut it, kid,” his father mutters. He sits on the crate and stares at Chris through the gate, and when Chris politely knocks again, he sighs and gets up and opens it a crack. “You have ten seconds to explain to me why I need your trouble.”

“I’m not trying to…look, I thought you might want some information on their courting style,” Chris says. He’s unusually pushy about it, even looking Stiles’ father in the eye and everything, and when Stiles’ father hesitates out of sheer surprise, Chris actually sticks his foot over the threshold so they’ll have to shut the gate on it to keep him out. “And yeah, it’s my family’s knowledge, and it’s biased, and all that, but it’s either ask me or ask them.”

Well, to be honest…Stiles can’t really see any holes in that. Neither can his father, though the man glowers at Chris for a couple more seconds before he finally backs up. “Fine. But that’s all we want to know. We don’t want to know about how we can use it to rally the community around us, or drive werewolves out of town, or—”

“We settled our feud before you even got here, all right? I’ve never tried to get you to do any of that,” Chris says in a sharp, exasperated tone.

“Really? Because I seem to remember you saying different the first time we met,” Stiles’ father snaps.

Stiles was not there for that, and he’s never gotten the whole story out of his father, and that lack of knowledge is a perpetual thorn in his side because whatever happened, the slightest reference to it always collapses Chris like a muddy hillside in a rainstorm. His shoulders slump, his hands jerk back, and his eyes drop, and the uncontested resident master hunter just generally looks as if he’s been sent home with a kick to the gut and no lunch.

“John, I’m just…I’d like to help,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to make you do anything, I just…”

And whatever it was, remembering it always makes Stiles’ dad especially grumpy. Usually he’s a lot more forgiving than Stiles is, constantly reminding Stiles that the garden is for _all_ of the community, and that they’re not the kind of genii loci who pick and choose who gets its bounty, but Chris somehow managed to earn himself an exception to that. They don’t kick people out, but Stiles’ father is constantly slamming things in Chris’ face.

He’s thinking about it right now, Stiles can tell from how his father’s rubbing the side of his hip, but then his dad glances over at him. A flicker of worry goes over his dad’s face and then he sighs, and waves at the crate he’d just been using. “Fine. Talk.”

Chris’ eyes widen, but he smartly doesn’t waste any time on being shocked, and just slides through the gate and grabs the seat. “All right,” he says briskly, though he’s more looking at Stiles’ father than Stiles. “There are three major stages. The first stage is proving you have the skills to be a provider, the second is proving you have enough territory to support your family, and the last stage is proving that you can defend it. Well, assuming you’re open to it in the first place, so…are you?”

“If he says no, are you going to start telling us about how to dust our crops with wolfsbane and plow mountain ash into the soil?” Stiles’ father says.

That clearly isn’t too far from Chris’ mind, but he takes a deep breath, doesn’t say it, and instead, with visible effort, just points towards the gate. “If that’s the case…I’ll just be telling you things you already know, and…can make up your own mind about, and…I said I wouldn’t do that,” he says quietly. “I can—I can leave.”

“Well, fine, good to know, now back to the courtship stages,” Stiles says. When his father raises his brows, Stiles flaps him off and then breaks off a couple splinters from the crate he’s on. He makes one a stylus, the other a piece of parchment, and starts taking notes. “So in each stage, how many…okay, well, first, what are we talking about? Gifts? Dates? Both? And how many of each are customary, and what do I have to do, and—”

“That part’s mostly up to each person,” Chris says, a little startled. He rubs his hands against his knees. “Peter’s a little…unusual, but the Hales generally tend to be more elaborate. But this is all just a way of offering proofs, so you aren’t responsible for anything except telling him whether he’s getting anywhere.”

“And we should be clear about that, right?” Stiles’ father says, with a sideways look at Stiles that Stiles absolutely hasn’t earned, considering this is just information-gathering.

Chris nods slowly. He looks a little uneasy and at first Stiles thinks he’s picking up on the little war of looks Stiles and his father have going on, but then Chris abruptly sits up. “So…so are you not really leaving?” he says. “Because…because that’d be a pretty clear rejection, so…”

“As far as we know, the _original_ plan is still in place,” Stiles’ father says. “One year, which is what you people asked for. Year’s up at the start of winter, although obviously, if it looks like we’re causing more harm than good, I’m not sure I want Stiles—”

“You’re not,” Chris says. He almost gets off the crate, he’s so emphatic about it, and when he sits back down, he’s clearly struggling to stay calm. “No, you’re—I don’t know anybody who thinks you’re doing anything but helping us. And…and if it’s that you’re feeling unwelcome because of Peter, I’m…wait, John, I’m not saying—I’m just saying that I’m happy to _talk_ to—”

“Thanks, but no thanks, and I think we’ve heard enough,” Stiles’ father says, opening the gate again. 

He holds onto the latch, giving Chris a pointed look. Chris lifts his hands, then lowers them, and then glances at Stiles, like Stiles is going to give him anything versus Stiles’ own father. Then he slumps and he gets off the crate, and he walks out the gate.

“Thanks for…what you said, the parts that were useful,” Stiles’ father mutters, just as Chris crosses the threshold.

Chris immediately looks up, brightening, and Stiles’ father grimaces and shuts the gate. Then he stalks into the house, completely pretending like Chris isn’t still watching him through the bars. He’s muttering to himself the whole way, banging things around, dropping beets and then kicking them instead of picking them up, so Stiles just puts away his notes and helps his father start dinner.

Once that’s going, they sit down and face each other at the table. “So, Dad,” Stiles says. “Odds that hunters do panic courtships? Because I know we’ve been, you know, not talking about it in hopes that it doesn’t actually exist, but…yeah.”

Stiles’ father glares at him. Then puts his elbows up on the table and shoves his face in his hands. “That was a bad idea, talking to him,” he mutters. “I need to stop doing that. Don’t let me do that again.”

“Um, okay,” Stiles says. “Also…”

“You’re going to see Peter Hale again, aren’t you?” his father sighs, pulling his hands down.

“Well, now that I think about it…and I am because I’m trying to do what you’re always telling me and think of the community as a whole, while respecting the individuality of each part, just like each tree in an orchard, _Dad_ ,” Stiles says. He pauses, and then sighs too. “I think I gotta, just so when I do turn him down, it doesn’t turn into some local drama. I probably should’ve just told him to come back later when he came over earlier. Then Chris wouldn’t have heard and tried to make it into this…dispute, and…”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think you can be blamed for being blindsided. And you definitely aren’t at fault for whatever the hell goes through Argent’s head. I don’t even know…” His father shakes his head, then looks over at Stiles. “You sure you don’t just want to go? I’ll stay and I can smooth it over with the druids, Stiles, you don’t need to worry about that.”

Stiles shakes his head. “Nah, it’s fine, Dad. Besides, honestly, it’s probably just that they’re panicking about actually having to _work_ for their stupid strawberries. I’ll just tell him off for being a lazy asshole, like he’s always been, and we’ll go when we’re supposed to and they’ll just have to deal without us.”

* * *

Every morning, well before dawn, Stiles starts his day. Genii loci don’t need the kind of sleep that people do, and anyway, there’s so much that can only be done in the early twilight hours, when the dew is still fresh and the plants are still tightly furled up for the night, and the earth is quiet and cool. So he doesn’t mind or anything. In fact, he likes it. The nighttime animals have gone to ground, while the daytime ones aren’t yet up and about, and so it’s just a little sliver of peacefulness he gets all to himself.

Normally. Today he answers the front gate, basket of half-filled tools in one hand, still trying to tie off his hip wrap with his other, and finds the werewolf waiting there. It is _way_ past the time when werewolves—who just come out during the day for specific reasons, like markets and pestering overworked genii loci—should be in their dens, but he’s dressed up nice, with his hair combed back from his face and even a little damp, with eyes that spark pleasantly upon seeing Stiles and a bright smile.

“Good morning,” he says. His eyes drop to where Stiles is showing the top of his hipbone, and then he doesn’t look at all ashamed. “I thought that this is when you’re usually up, but I seem to have caught you too early.”

“Caught me, hah, you’re definitely too early for that kind of lame innuendo,” Stiles mutters. He just drops the basket and finishes fastening his wrap, and then he looks at the werewolf. “Okay, fine, so is this where you bring me something better than a stupid deer heart?”

The werewolf’s face tightens slightly, but he doesn’t stop smiling as he whisks something from behind his back. Which…so Stiles is all primed and ready to just rip it down for how totally unsuitable it is for an agriculturally-focused entity and go point-by-point proving how they aren’t compatible and just cut everything off so he can actually _garden_ already, except—it’s a pot. With a plant in it.

Specifically, a wildflower. Not something that has any obvious edible uses, but genii loci aren’t just farmers. They deal with plants in general, it’s just that when they’re helping out communities, they concentrate on plants that have practical impact. Which Stiles understands, but he’s not totally sure he agrees with, because feeding and clothing the body is ultimately to make sure that people can thrive enough to then work on their minds. And beauty’s important. Appreciating flowers that are _just_ pretty isn’t just about wasting time—it’s about seeing all of a place, all its aspects, and not just the stuff that can be harvested. Because hey, farmers can be selfish idiots too, getting stuck on the part where they get wealthy and missing the rest of life.

So basically, Stiles gets distracted. He lifts up the pot to see if any roots are coming out the drainage hole, then hikes it under his arm so he can gently slide the plant out sideways. “Oh, wow, I don’t think I’ve seen this before,” he says. “Is this local? Did you dig it up or do you grow it domestically? And if you dug it up, did you pay attention to whether it’s a taproot or a—”

“It’s wild, I did dig it up, and I’m not sure what you mean by a taproot?” the werewolf says. “Can I come in?”

“Sure, whatever,” Stiles says, turning away with the plant. From the looks of the root ball, it’s not a taproot and it’s a naturally shallow network. “Was this the type of soil you found it in?”

“Yes, I potted it with the dirt I found it in.” The werewolf slides through the gate, shutting it behind him, and then hustles up behind Stiles as they head towards one of the sheds. “These grow mostly on sunny hillsides, not too rocky, though I’ve occasionally seen them further up the mountains.”

Stiles kicks open the shed door with his foot, then drops the pot off to the side. He grabs a piece of burlap, dampens it in a water barrel, and then bundles it up around the plant’s root ball for now. He’s heading out towards the flower beds anyway and he has the perfect spot for it, and…

“If you need any more information, I’d be happy to show you the very place,” the werewolf says, breathing warmly down Stiles’ neck, way too close and too smirky and damn.

“Hahaha, that was very clever. I bet you snatch a lot of baby deer like that,” Stiles says, backing the hell up. “Just invite them over to see your lovely flower patch in the back of the woods and then chomp.”

The werewolf looks wounded. And under that, he looks a little perturbed. “Stiles, I assure you, this is a completely serious offer. I want you to rest secure in knowing that we can and will provide you with everything that you need, and I’m happy to show you anything and anywhere to accomplish that.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, and the werewolf relaxes. Which just pisses Stiles off even more, because just because he works all day in a garden and wears a hip wrap where the men here go with trousers (when they bother, hello, naked shifters) and has kind of a baby face doesn’t mean that he’s easy. And recreational sex should be appreciated for what it is, not—not used to make stupid assumptions. “Okay, I get that, but, um, you’re a werewolf? I mean, you inherently need to constantly move around after your prey and you do that in the woods and other places where farming doesn’t work?”

“If you’re concerned about being left on your own,” the werewolf starts slowly. He’s dropped the smirk and instead is kind of unnervingly focused on Stiles. “We aren’t purely nomadic. We have dens, of course. And one of the strengths of belonging to a stable pack, such as ours, is that we can rotate responsibilities. I’ll certainly be out some of the time, but no more than you. Seeing as you spend the majority of the day and a fair portion of the evening away from your house.”

Stiles…knew that. He did. He isn’t one of those people who just hates on everything that he doesn’t know, and just because genii loci are, well, a _place_ doesn’t mean he’s unaware that people in different places have to live differently. He objects to the whole hunter attitude for better reasons than, they’re weird and violent. Really.

“Yeah, that’s very nice for you,” he says. He starts to put the burlap-wrapped plant down and then realizes he left his basket outside. “But I can’t live in a den.”

“Of course not, you’re a genius loci,” the werewolf says, producing Stiles’ basket. He’s starting to look smug again.

For a second Stiles thinks about getting a different basket. But this one already has a lot of his tools in it, and…fine, asshole werewolf. He gives the man a glare while he’s setting the plant into the basket, and then he takes that all away, stomping over to get the rest of his seed packets. 

“I think that may be a little in the future—I’m happy to continue seeing you here, seeing as it’s proven convenient for both of us—” definitely smug, and definitely watching Stiles’ ass, stupid werewolf “—but I’m certainly not tied to my family’s den. And werewolves in general are a little more adaptable than you seem to think. Personally, I see nothing wrong with a house, or even a cozy gazebo in the garden for summer nights. Near the berries, perhaps?”

“ _Way_ in the future, if that,” Stiles mutters, banging in the packets. Then he hefts the basket onto his shoulder and goes out of the shed. “Talk about getting an inch and taking the whole acre.”

The werewolf follows along, like somebody tied his nose to the back of Stiles’ wrap. He makes one attempt to take the basket, but when Stiles slaps at him, he holds up his hands, then pointedly clasps them behind his back. Which, incidentally, lets him swerve himself so close that their hips are almost brushing.

“So may I take you out and show you some of the rest of my family’s lands?” the werewolf asks. “You’ve worked so diligently here, I don’t think you’ve had a chance to fully enjoy the area, and there’s really quite a lot that I think you’ll like. Many more types of flowers, for example.”

“I’m still not convinced that this isn’t a total waste of time,” Stiles says flatly. “Genius loci here. Literally means, this place.”

“But ‘this place’ doesn’t necessarily mean just this little patch. And I have to admit, it _is_ little,” the werewolf mutters, glancing around. He’s deliberately waiting till Stiles yelps in indignation, and then he puts his hand out and pats Stiles’ arm. “Oh, no, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t referring to your efforts at all. You’ve done so much…but genius loci usually do work with a broader acreage, don’t they? And often expand over time, if the location is favorable? And don’t _just_ work in agriculture, but often work generally to shape the landscape?”

Stiles makes a face at him, because ugh, but for some random fence-hopping berry-gobbling pervert, he’s annoying well-educated. “Yeah, well, this is the plot we got when we showed up. And we’ve still got a lot to do right here, seeing as we had to start completely from scratch.”

“I am aware of that, and I do admit we were not as…we had some doubts at first.” The werewolf tips his head to the side and sighs. He’s still got his hand on Stiles’ arm. “But we don’t now, and my sister’s already considering the issue, and again, whatever you need—”

This isn’t working. “Never mind about what I need, if we’ve got earth and sun and water, we can make it work,” Stiles says. Pulling his arm away. And then almost running himself into a squash plant, stupid narrow paths that weren’t designed for avoiding clingy werewolves. “What about the fact that—that I don’t like you. Like on a personal level.”

The werewolf’s brows tick up. “In what way?”

“What? What do you mean, what—you break through our fences!” Stiles snaps.

“As I recall, I’ve never actually _broken_ in,” the werewolf says dryly. “But yes, I’ve shown some disrespect for your property boundaries. I sincerely apologize, and swear on the blood of my pack to only obtain my fruit with your pre-approval from now on.”

Stiles stares at him for a couple seconds, enough to get the corners of the werewolf’s mouth curling up again, and then he shakes his head. “You’re a huge distraction, and you keep me from doing my work, and this whole courtship thing, that’s just an example of that. I mean, going out to see your lands, so I’m supposed to take a whole day off or something? Have you not noticed that it’s me and my dad, and sure, we’re magical and all but—”

That throws the werewolf for a little bit. Not that long, but he does purse his lips and think it over and look semi-irritated with himself. “Right. No, of course, your work—your work’s important, and…and we’ve been living off the fruits of your labor for far too long. I’ll speak with my sister, and we’ll canvass the locals, and…would you prefer three or four shifts?”

“Shifts?” Stiles says.

“Volunteers,” the werewolf says. “For learning how to work the garden. And while I’d still like to show you our lands, we can incorporate that with your regular trips out so as not to take you away any longer than you normally would be.”

“My trips?” Stiles says.

“When you go and collect pieces of wood and animal shit?” the werewolf delicately lilts.

Stiles would accuse the werewolf of spying on him, considering he’s never noticed anybody following him—Scott occasionally comes along, but he tends to get distracted with the scent and ends up following it to an abandoned baby bear or something like that—but technically he’s in a public area when he goes out. And he’s not trying to hide what he’s doing. It’s not like he’s ashamed of it or anything, and now the werewolf’s got him chasing his own mind in circles, great.

“Yeah, that, got it,” Stiles mutters. They’re almost at the first vegetable beds and he scrubs at the side of his face, searching for something else. Because damn it, he can’t turn down volunteers. That’s what they were _supposed_ to be doing in the first place, training people, except the one time they’d asked, everybody’d looked so blank that Stiles’ dad had just sighed and put it aside and said just concentrate on getting sprouts in the ground. “You’re older than I am. Like way older.”

“I don’t think that can be an objection on physical grounds,” the werewolf says after a second. He sounds like he’s taking it seriously, putting thought into it and all that, but his eyes are just lazing around in glee, because he totally takes it for a sign that Stiles’ resistance is faltering (which sadly, it is). “Seeing as you’ve certainly very much enjoyed our previous encounters, I don’t think that’s up for dispute. At any rate, werewolf and genii loci lifespans are comparable, and I think a few years will make that difference negligible.”

They’re at the first bed, so Stiles puts his basket down in a shady spot and then pulls out his cutting knife and his trowel. He walks up into the aisle, then squats down in front of the first rhubarb stand. The werewolf mimics him, unsheathing his claws and then holding them up like he’s going to—

“Hey!” Stiles smacks the nearer of the werewolf’s hands with the trowel, then can’t help himself, even though he _knows_ what the werewolf’s doing. He drops the trowel and then grabs the werewolf’s hand, moving it around so that he won’t just shred the stalks when he cuts them. “No, like this, clean cut, it can’t be that different from butchering, and—and whatever, negligible, _right now_ it might be fun to mess around but afterward you’re gonna get up and want to go…werewolf out with your buddies, and I’ll still be in the garden, and—”

“If this is about whether I’m personally interested,” the werewolf says, his voice abruptly sobering. He sets aside the rhubarb Stiles has just helped him cut and then leans forward into the gap he’s just made, fingers wrapping around Stiles’ hand, eyes fixed intently on Stiles’ face. “Stiles. I realize we’ve lived very different lives up till now, and I find yours _fascinating_. And I’m prepared to learn anything about it that you care to teach me. As for my friends…if they can’t wait, then they’re hardly friends, are they?”

“Ah. Huh. Uh.” Stiles makes noncommittal sounds for a couple reasons. One, he might not be coming up with any objections to what the werewolf is saying, but that doesn’t mean he thinks it’s not…not got something that needs to be objected to, somewhere. Two, he might _know_ that he’s basically managed to slide himself right into stage two of courting, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to give the werewolf the satisfaction of admitting it.

And…well, number three would be that the werewolf is still staring at him, while holding onto his hand, and neither of those two things seem to be about anything except actual sincerity. In all honesty, Stiles isn’t completely sure that the werewolf _would_ smirk about getting to go to the next stage, and that’s just…really uncomfortable, seeing as he’d been dead sure the man really just wanted a quick fuck and didn’t really give a damn about all the stuff growing around them when they were fucking and…huh.

“Huh,” Stiles says again, grinning. He gives the werewolf a squeeze on the hand, and then, while the werewolf is blinking hard, grabs both of the man’s hands and puts them on the rhubarb. “Well, all right, no time like the present, in that case. Now, look, we have to get this whole section cleared and then we gotta move on to the stonefruit, so like this, and this.”

He demonstrates with his knife, at his normal speed. The werewolf blinks again, then raises his hand to ask something, but Stiles is already hopping over him to the next aisle.

“You got it, right?” he yells over his shoulder, already cutting his way yards down that row. “Good, because we’re super busy today! Thanks, this should be great! You’ll learn a ton!”

* * *

“Stiles,” his father says, watching the werewolf go down the road. “I’m not sure this is going to do what you want to.”

“I don’t know, it looks like it’s working well so far,” Stiles says. 

The werewolf’s covered in dirt from head to foot, even though he poured a couple buckets of water over himself before he set out. His hair in particular is a mess, so dusty it’s almost ten shades lighter. And when he hits the forest, he abruptly drops to his hands and knees, strips off and shifts, and if he looked exhausted on two legs, he looks flat-out bone-worn on four, his head hanging at his feet, his tail just as low behind him, paws barely coming off the ground as he trudges into the woods.

Stiles’ father clears his throat. When Stiles looks at him, he just nods off to the side, and…okay, Stiles acknowledges, wincing a little, maybe there were some negative consequences. The werewolf did a lot better than he was expecting, especially with the hot peppers, but there’s still a fair bit of mangled produce that they’re going to have to deal with.

“Well, hey, I jumpstarted our community knowledge outreach,” Stiles finally says. “I mean, if he really meant that.”

“I don’t think I’m going to bet on him not meaning it,” Stiles’ father says after a moment. He scrubs at the side of his face, still looking at the damaged produce. “Deaton came over while you and Peter were in the back fields, and _he’s_ certainly got a bee in his…anyway, apparently all the elders want to come over and sit down and ‘discuss’ the future of the garden.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Oh, yeah, sure, nine months and he’s cool to just swing by every week for his box o’ veg, and suddenly he’s jumping back on the wagon? That’s not suspicious at all.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll just deal with them when they get here,” his father mutters. He looks at the vegetables and fruits for a little longer, then sighs. “We’ll just leave this all here for now and see what’s salvageable come morning. And don’t act like you aren’t a little shaky on your feet too, son. I see that yawn.”

To which Stiles would say, what yawn, except that…okay. So yeah, he’s pretty worn out. Spending the whole day trying to keep out of conversation’s reach of the werewolf is more tiring than having sex with him, weirdly enough.

“Look on the bright side, Dad,” he says, when the yawn’s finally done. “People are interested, maybe somebody will pick up enough to remember crop rotations next year, and at least we won’t be short of compost for the rest of this year.”

His father sighs and slings his arm over Stiles’ shoulder, walking Stiles towards their house. “Let’s see if you’re still telling me that after we’ve got everything chopped in and turned over,” he says.

“Sure, whatever,” Stiles says, yawning again.

* * *

In the morning Stiles goes out and has another look and…it’s a lot of produce. Like, a lot. Like, he’s not sure his father and him have _ever_ harvested this much in a single day.

Also, the werewolf’s waiting at the gate again. He still has a little dirt under his nails and when Stiles opens the gate, he catches the man mid-working out a cramp in his calf, but he’s smiling and eager. And he has people with him.

Specifically, he has Chris and Chris’ daughter, and Scott, who is alternating between exchanging foot-pokes with Allison and making more nervous gestures at Stiles behind Chris’ back. “Hi,” Chris says, in the middle of a deep sigh. “Is your father up yet?”

“The elders met amongst ourselves last night and ahead of our meeting with you, we thought it’d be a nice gesture of solidarity to show that our two families, at least, are invested in the success of the garden,” the werewolf says, producing a bucket from behind his back.

He goes on in that line for a couple minutes and Scott’s adding some weird urgent whiny noises to the gestures, but Stiles sort of ignores both because the bucket has a plant floating in it and Stiles just—he loves aquaculture, okay? Loves it, never gets to do it, especially back home because oops, he built an inadequate dam when he was ten and accidentally flooded a neighboring chicken coop. He’s a lot better at that kind of engineering _now_ , and anyway, even back then, nobody really got hurt. The chickens dried out and everything.

Anyway, Stiles looks up from fiddling with the interesting air pockets that the plant’s stems have, and realizes that everybody’s standing inside the gate. Also, his dad’s come out, still chewing on breakfast, and is looking like he might compost the _werewolf_ , who is attempting to have him and Chris do something with a bag Chris has brought with him.

“Oh, okay, so this is first shift, right?” Stiles says. He doesn’t think, just grabs, and he’s got the werewolf over at the shed before his father can remind everybody that agriculturalists like peace but still are well-versed in stuff like sickles and scythes and other sharp-edged objects. “So, we picked stuff yesterday, and today is sorting day! Scott, you’ve done this before—”

“I can show Allison!” Scott says, helpfully grabbing her hand and pulling her over.

Allison smiles politely, but she’s dragging her feet, trying to look back and keep an eye on her very fidgety, awkward-looking father, who appears to be trying to explain why the hell he brought a net with him. Stiles…Stiles really, honestly doesn’t want any bloodshed, that’s why he’s actually attempting to save the werewolf’s ass from his father, but Chris Argent really just seems to ask for it sometimes.

“Well, I take it you’re more convinced as to our intentions?” the werewolf says. He twists his arm, not to get it loose, but to get himself closer to Stiles.

Which reminds Stiles that _other_ people tend to ask for it too. He lets go, and then yanks up a machete before the werewolf can come any closer. “I’m not going to turn down free labor, is what it means,” he says. He holds out the machete, the werewolf sighs and starts to lift his hands, and then he rolls his eyes and flips it around to give it handle-first to the werewolf. “Here, take this, you’ll need it for the corn stalks. Scott, um, I guess you two can start on beans, that’s a good beginner thing.”

“I know how to shell beans,” Allison says irritably, pulling away from Scott. She folds her arms over her chest and picks her way through the piles of dinged radishes, looking sharply at Stiles. “You know, just because we’re hunters doesn’t mean _all_ we live on is meat. And my dad’s one of the best cooks around. If _your_ dad wasn’t so mean to him, maybe he could show you a few things.”

Scott starts to ‘translate’ that into something nicer. Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, maybe _your_ dad shouldn’t have welcomed us to the neighborhood the way he did.”

Allison frowns. “What did he do? No, I’m serious…he refuses to tell me, no matter what. He just keeps saying that your dad was right.”

“Because he’s always right,” Stiles says.

Scott is his friend, and is a lovably loyal kind of werewolf, but Scott is also honest to the point of metaphorically stabbing himself in the foot about once a day. And Scott’s been the recipient of plenty of Stiles’ rants about his dad, says the way Scott is ‘umming’ dubiously and scuffing his head.

“Okay, fine, I just…honestly, I don’t know either. Just that your dad was being all hunter asshole and mine called him out, and ever since your dad’s been trying to get back in his good graces and if this is your idea,” Stiles says, slewing around to glare at a genuinely startled werewolf. “If it is, just…I don’t know why you’d think _helping_ Chris Argent annoy my dad is going to make me happy, but—”

“Stiles, I had no idea your father and Chris had something,” the werewolf says.

Scott is a lot less embarrassed about this ‘umm.’

“Well, all right, the entire town is aware that Chris would like to improve his relations with your father, but I honestly had no idea it was such a personal matter,” the werewolf says. Judging by the irritated look he shoots Scott, and then Chris over Scott’s shoulder, he’s telling the truth. “He’s an elder, he was at our meeting last night, and when he heard that you needed volunteers—”

“And of course we were going to come,” Allison breaks in earnestly. “That’s not just about making things up to your dad, you know. I can’t believe you think that we don’t want you here. It’s been great, I just—I don’t think you see it, but we never had something like this before that we could all go to, and just see each other doing…well, not hunting, and just, do you really have to leave? We’ll miss you.”

“Um,” Stiles says, blinking. Because sure, he and Allison know each other, but they’re not exactly close friends or anything. Mostly she stands back and wrings her hands while her father embarrasses himself, and then she runs off with Scott. “That’s…that’s…”

“Beans!” Scott says, like the genius he is.

Okay, so even as his friend, Stiles can’t call him a genius. But it’s definitely helpful, getting Allison back to the practical stuff at hand, and now that she’s explained how she actually has skills and whatever, she’s happy to wander off with Scott into the bushels and bushels of beans in the back of the shed.

“I’ll have a word with Chris later,” the werewolf says. “That really is something he should disclose to the rest of us, especially with _his_ family’s track record.”

He’s slitting his eyes as he stares at Chris, who amazingly has gotten over the net issue, and who’s somehow gotten Stiles’ father to pull out a knife and demonstrate the proper way to turn an artichoke. Although how much of that Chris is really absorbing when his eyes are glued to Stiles’ father’s biceps is a different story. Stiles hopes for his sake that Allison’s right about him being a good cook, because if Stiles knows his father, there will totally be a test later.

“But anyway, Stiles, I hope this helps persuade you that we really are dedicated to having you here,” the werewolf goes on. He pulls back and looks at Stiles with a much friendlier expression. “And that _my_ personal interest in your work is genuine.”

“You put out a good game, I’ll give you that,” Stiles mutters. “I didn’t think you’d be back after yesterday.”

The werewolf raises his brows, then laughs. “What, because you were smart enough to use my offer to your advantage? Stiles, perhaps the problem is that you don’t know _me_ , because that’s just the kind of mind that I enjoy.”

“You know what,” Stiles says, looking at him. “You’re right. That’s totally the problem. I don’t know you. I mean, you have to admit, we weren’t exactly doing anything _mindful_ before.”

“Oh,” the werewolf says, frowning briefly. Surprisingly, it takes him a second to jump on the obvious opening. “Well, I didn’t think…we _did_ talk about quite a…I did anyway, and…that is, if that’s it, then that’s quite easy to fix. I’ll simply have to show you more of myself.”

Stiles smiles. A flicker of wariness goes through the werewolf’s eyes, but then Stiles steps forward and puts his hand on the werewolf’s arm, the one with the machete, and the werewolf gets distracted by high hopes. Perfect.

“That sounds great,” Stiles says. “Let’s start now. You were going to take me on a picnic or something, right?”

The werewolf hesitates again. “But your work here—”

“Dad!” Stiles yells. “Dad, Scott and Allison are working in the shed, so I’m going out scavenging, okay? Back for lunch!”

Stiles’ father has handed the knife to Chris, who is doing something very blurry with it and a sunchoke that seems to be very interesting to Stiles’ father. It takes him a moment to wave his hand in acknowledgment. Then he looks up, frowning, but Stiles has already dragged the werewolf around the side of the shed, towards one of the side gates. He snags a burlap sack on his way out, then stuffs that at the werewolf.

“As long as we’re back in time and that’s filled with shit, I’m still hitting my to-do list for the day,” Stiles says, smiling again at the werewolf. “So, let’s talk about you, shall we?”

* * *

Once they get safely away from the garden walls, the werewolf is predictably smug about getting Stiles all to himself in the woods. “And you can see here that this is old-growth timber,” the werewolf says, waving vaguely around himself, while moving his eyes over the ties of Stiles’ hip wrap like he can will them undone that way. “We’ve some of the biggest old-growth groves in the regions, and it’s a cornerstone of our pack’s strength. This is the kind of area that attracts valuable game—very popular during the fall ruts.”

“Everything comes back to sex with you, huh,” Stiles says. He squats down and flips over some leaf litter, revealing a fresh, stinky clump of deer dung. “Though great, we should be able to fill up the bag right here.”

The werewolf sighs and drags his eyes away from Stiles’ wrap, and helps collect the dung. And then, sensibly enough, he takes Stiles over to a cute little pond and waterfall set-up to rinse off. He takes off his clothing for that, even though it’s not dirty, and just doesn’t put it back on.

“This is one of my favorite spots,” he says. He sits on the edge and dangles his feet in the water, and then playfully kicks a little water at Stiles, who’s still scrubbing under his nails next to the man. “There’s a beaver dam upstream that helps keep it topped up, and as you can see, there’s plenty of fish. And the swampy area around it makes it difficult for anyone else to find it, so nobody ever disturbs me here. Very easy to waste a whole day here, in good weather.”

Stiles wipes his hands off on his wrap, which is already sticking to him from the water the werewolf kicked up. He stands up and the wrap clings between his thighs, and when he tugs that out—the werewolf’s looking so hard that he doesn’t notice the fish nibbling his toes—a little trickle starts down the inside of his leg. He swipes at it, flicks his fingers clean in the same direction that the werewolf just _happens_ to be in, and then turns around.

“So this is where you hide when people want you to do something, you mean?” he says brightly. “So how often do you do that, again?”

The werewolf stops mid-sniff, then pulls his feet out of the water and gets up. “Let’s move on,” he says. “I’m sure you spend plenty of time outdoors, after all.”

Next stop is not quite the Hales’ main den, although the aboveground part of that is clearly visible further up the hill. The werewolf explains how his den is connected via underground tunnel to the main one, showing Stiles around what is, admittedly, a very neat, clean, snug set of rooms, with the entrance cleverly hidden by a rock outcropping. The walls are plastered, the floor is either tiled or made of boards polished to a silky finish, and it’s lit with softly glowing globes.

“And here’s the library. We have a much larger one in the main den, which is also at your disposal, but I like to think that I’ve curated the best volumes here,” the werewolf says proudly.

“Curated like you borrowed them and never gave them back?” Stiles says, skimming over the spines.

The werewolf shrugs. “Well, books are meant to be used, and if the poor things are opened so rarely that the leather cracks when you try to read them…I prefer to think of it as rescuing them.”

Stiles can’t help laughing, and in mostly a sympathetic way. He doesn’t often get a chance to read, except in the winter, but he loves books and he’s always having to send his small collection out to be rebound. And…and damn it, but the werewolf actually has a pretty nice selection. Lots of naturalist stuff, herbals and astrology texts and bestiaries. Stiles almost pulls out a bestiary he hasn’t seen before, but then he reminds himself he’s not here to have _fun_. That’s what got him into trouble in the first place.

And then he frowns and he pokes his finger at one book. The werewolf looks, winces and puts his hand out, then hastily withdraws it. “Ah, yes, that,” the werewolf says. “I…well, I was…”

Stiles does pull out that book. He flips through a few pages, while the werewolf starts and fails a few times to ask Stiles if he’d rather see the etchings in the other room, or whatever, and then he goes back to the table of contents. “‘On the unnaturalness of peace, and the necessity of war,’” Stiles reads. He skips down a few lines. “‘On the fools who would say that to share, and to all survive, is better than to enrich oneself when others fail.’”

“It’s a book,” the werewolf says abruptly. “It’s hardly a window into my head.”

“Well, I guess, but I don’t know you, right?” Stiles says, looking up. “I mean, this is what I was talking about. I give you credit for trying, but at the end of the day, I don’t think we want the same things.”

“And why are you so sure of that?” the werewolf says. He’s angry, actually, his eyes flashing, even though he stays where he is and his nails and teeth stay blunt. “If we didn’t see the value in what you do, would we have asked for you to come in the first place? Would we be so—so upset at the thought of losing you?”

Sighing, Stiles puts the book back. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying…I mean, how do you think this works, exactly? If I say yes to you, does that mean the garden’s suddenly your pack’s? Is it now your territory, too? Because that’s not what my dad and I came here to do. That’s not what we _are_. And—and it’s not just, you tell me you can change yourself, okay, because you’re the way you are for a reason and—”

“Which you’ve made clear that you hold in contempt, to the point that you don’t actually want to see what reasons we have,” the werewolf snaps. “Yes, we hunt. Yes, we hold our territory against other packs. But we’re not animals, Stiles. We’re people, and our whole _dispute_ , which is why you were asked here in the first place, was about validating that. We’re people, and as people we have the right to have a say in our community. Though from the way you and your father treat the garden, it might as well be your small kingdom.”

“Are you calling me a hypocrite?” Stiles snaps back.

The werewolf’s head comes down in a sharp nod, even before he says anything. And then he stiffens and his eyes and mouth twitch, regret coming into his face just a little late.

“Stiles—” he starts, reaching out.

“I don’t think I want to get to know you anymore,” Stiles says, shoving by him. “Actually, I’m sorry I ever even _saw_ you.”

He gets out of the den and…he’s alone. He bounces a little on the balls of his feet, still anticipating a grab at his arm or shoulder at any second; he’s only stopping because, well, he’s only been here once, today, and he doesn’t know which way to go from here. Sadly, the genius loci thing just comes with a feeling for a particular place, and not an internal compass. And he’s not—he’s not asking that stupid _werewolf_ how to get home.

Stiles finally just picks a direction and goes off that way. And the werewolf doesn’t go after him.

* * *

So Stiles gets lost. So he’s only walking around about ten minutes before he gets over his frustration enough to admit that, and then it’s another ten before he finally caves and admits that the werewolf had had a point, too. His dad’s always warning him about it being a fine line between caring about something and smothering it, and he’s always saying that he already knows that, but…he guesses he doesn’t. Well, people are a lot harder than soil that way—you can always just cut back on watering, or not stick a spade in it so much.

He walks for another hour or so, because admitting something isn’t the same as being okay with it, and then he’s tired enough that he takes a seat on some tree roots. And when he’s sitting and not looking at all the new plants he should be thrilled about seeing and not being thrilled in the least, he…can’t help thinking about it.

So yeah. Stiles is kind an asshole. He still thinks it’s a little different from being the kind of asshole who thinks that all that matters is the catch, the big prize, and never mind who gets run over during the chase, but any kind of asshole is, at the end of the day, an asshole. And he hates assholes.

“I don’t think I handled this right,” he sighs, poking at a twig, and that’s when something with big teeth and outstretched claws jumps out of the bushes, roaring at him.

Stiles grabs the twig up and changes it to a big sharp wooden needle, and he flings it at the thing. The needle stabs into a shoulder, then falls out, and there’s a lot of blood but the spot promptly heals over, and the—it’s a werewolf, great—roars again, gnashing its teeth and flashing red eyes.

Obviously, Stiles was also getting up and running like hell while throwing the needle, because sure, let’s not be a pushover but genius loci _not_ at his loci. He’s a little limited at the moment, and he damn well doesn’t have the kind of muscle mass that this crazy alpha has. It makes bears look skinny.

It’s also slower than him, and he’s just about thinking he’s doing great, when suddenly _another_ alpha rushes up from the side. He doesn’t wait to see if it’s friendly, but just jumps into the nearest tree. And that’s a good thing because alpha one rams into alpha two and there’s a gross merging moment and now it’s one man-mountain alpha who grabs the trunk of the tree Stiles is in, and damn near jerks it out of the ground in one go.

Stiles is already scrambling along a branch, but his wrap catches somewhere, then rips. He hisses and grabs at it, then reminds himself that staying decent doesn’t actually matter in a life-threatening situation and just jumps for the next tree. And then the next, and he barely manages to slide down that one before the doubled-up alpha literally headbutts his way through the trunk.

He’s somehow still got his wrap around him, even though it’s dangling low enough to get in the way of his running. Then he hits himself on the head, and in the next second he yanks off his wrap, uses it to sling up a rock as he’s running, and he’s about to send that rock back over his shoulder when a third snarling alpha appears.

“Oh, for,” Stiles says, whirling the rock down onto that alpha’s head. Then he jumps to the side, putting it between him and the oncoming two-in-one alpha, and skids down the hillside till he hits a stream.

Genii loci, nymphs, not the same thing, but related. So he can’t just dissolve into the water, but he can run on _top_ of it, and when he gets up enough speed, he can twist his feet sideways and then surf down the stream, shooting around its curves and on down the hill at what would be a terrifying speed to a human.

It’s certainly quick enough to put some distance between him and the—what the hell, seriously, _five_ alphas, since two-in-one is back to two—but the gap stops widening while the alphas are still way too close. And also, it looks like Stiles is running out of stream. Great. Why can’t he have annoying stalkers when he needs them?

“Stiles!” somebody shouts.

“Chris?” Stiles says, and then he loses his balance mid-turn and skids right off the stream and onto a bank.

Thankfully, it’s the opposite side of where the alphas are. Though the stream’s not that wide and they’re already leaping into the air, as Stiles is scrambling up to his feet, and then Chris _does_ pop up. Him and Allison, and behind them, Stiles’ dad and Alpha Hale and a whole bunch of other people.

Come to think of it, Stiles did promise to be back for lunch, and it’s way past that.

Stiles trips as part of the bank gives way under his feet, then just keeps himself from sliding under an alpha’s claws, rolling sideways. Something goes roaring over his head, nailing that alpha back into the stream, and then Chris drops by him, all splattered with blood from the spear he’s jamming into a second alpha. 

Chris grabs Stiles by the arm and jerks him up and tosses him up the bank, in one smooth motion, and Stiles doesn’t even have time to grudgingly admire that when his dad’s got him. “Stiles,” his dad says, so relieved that he’s shaking. “You’re okay.”

“Um, yeah, I’m really sorry, I— _Dad_ ,” Stiles shouts, pointing, as an alpha gets past Alpha Hale and somebody he thinks is Scott, and heads straight for them.

His father twists around and sees, and then the worry drops from his face and he’s just ticked off now. “Oh, to hell with this,” he says, scooping up a handful of earth. 

The attacking alpha takes the earth squarely in the mouth. It jerks to the side, coughing and spitting, pawing at its face in a mixture of confusion and anger, and then it straightens up to be all menacing and kill-happy again. Except that suddenly, it’s got ivy all over it. It rears up in alarm, then croaks in panic as more ivy shoots out of its mouth, curling back to weave into the dense net that’s rapidly covering its head and body.

Stiles stares. The other alphas stare. The locals stare. The ivy-covered alpha gets hoisted a few feet in the air on a leafy column, its feet dangling helplessly from the tightly-knotted vines, and its eyes roll once and then it’s dead.

“Yeah, so,” Stiles’ father says, holding up another handful of dirt. “Did you still want to come after my kid?”

Bye, alphas.

* * *

Well, actually, bye to three alphas. Chris and a couple of the resident werewolves managed to take down a second while Stiles’ dad was doing his thing, and in the process Chris got bashed into a tree. Nothing more serious than a broken arm, but the way he’s acting, he might as well have taken a trunk through the gut, or gotten bitten by an alpha, or something like that. He’s all downcast and mumbly even though he is _in_ their house.

Specifically, he’s sitting on the edge of Stiles’ dad’s bed, fidgeting with his sling while Deaton packs up his stuff and Stiles’ dad and he and Alpha Hale discuss when the other three alphas are going to come back. Because apparently, they’re some kind of asshole collective.

“When Gerard Argent died, we worked very hard to bring together all the packs who he and his men had injured. We’d all had enough of fighting, and we wanted to settle it once and for all,” Alpha Hale explains, in the tone of someone who’s gone way past resignation at the dumbassery of her fellow werewolves. “Unfortunately, Deucalion and those that follow him refused. Honestly, for him it’s not even about what the Argents did to him, it’s about some absurd idea he has to purify packs of those he considers weak, and never mind that his pack’s only able to survive by raiding the rest of us. If we all left, they’d die out.”

“Sadly, that’s not an option,” Deaton chimes in. He leans over and adjusts Chris’ sling for him one last time, ignoring Chris’ glare, and then picks up his bag. “Well, I’ll leave the recipe with John here, and I trust that you’ll see he takes it twice daily?”

“Yeah, I think we can do that,” Stiles’ dad says. “Got a problem with following instructions?”

He’s actually just teasing, Stiles knows that tone, but Chris winces hard enough that he jars his arm. Chris hisses and grabs at it and Stiles’ dad abruptly shuts his mouth, looking at him so that…Stiles decides maybe he’ll just walk Deaton and Alpha Hale out and then come back.

Except that Allison’s been loitering in the very next room, and she latches onto Deaton and starts peppering him with the kind of questions that confirm Chris is a terrible patient. Deaton patiently answers them, steering Allison off to the side, while Alpha Hale asks if Stiles minds letting his dad know that she’s just stepping out to check in on her pack—pretty much all of whom are clustered in the front yard—and then she’ll be back to finish discussing the strategy stuff. So Stiles gets about three feet and then he has to turn around anyway.

He wasn’t out of the room that long, but that’s apparently long enough for his dad to sit on the bed and put his arm around Chris and look exasperated. “I don’t know—you know what, I just have no idea with you,” his dad is saying. “You’re always saying this, but doing that, but…look, I don’t have a problem with you being a hunter. And just because we work with the earth doesn’t mean we’re naïve, or weak. If somebody comes after us, we will damn well defend ourselves. So I can’t fault you for doing the same, and I’m obviously not going to do it for helping Stiles.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Chris says, with a dry half-smile that somehow makes their heads lean together. Then he takes a deep breath and the smile starts to fade. “But you do—you did say, you think we’re barbaric.”

“I said I thought what you were _doing_ right then was barbaric,” Stiles’ dad says. “Listen. I’ve been around a little longer than Stiles, I know that things aren’t always clearcut, especially when you’re trying to protect people you love. Hell, if I could do it all over again, I’d want you to not kill that alpha, but just so I could do it myself. But protecting people and getting revenge are different things.”

“I know. I know, that’s what—that’s almost exactly what I told my father, when I broke with him,” Chris says. His voice wavers for a second, and when it strengthens, it’s right after Stiles’ father rubs his thumb over Chris’ shoulder. Chris’ head turns a little, not quite far enough for him to see that, but he’s starting to pink over the cheekbones. “So when you said that to me, I just…I tried really, really hard to find my own way, John. I’m still trying. And I just wish—I just wish I could show that to you right. I don’t know, it’s just you always seem to come around when I’m…I’m not as good as I should be.”

Stiles’ dad sighs. Chris’ head drops, like he’s expecting Stiles’ dad to get up, so when Stiles father reaches around and turns him by the chin, he looks like an owl chick, his eyes are so round with surprise. And Stiles…really needs to talk to his dad, but he doesn’t need to see that. Doesn’t really need to hear the wet soft noises either, or Chris’ little sigh.

“It’s not like I haven’t been seeing you try,” Stiles’ dad mutters. “I just—okay, I’ve been kind of—”

“Uh, dad,” Stiles says, studying the dust patterns on the floor.

There’s a thud, like somebody kicked the side of the bed, and then a muffled curse and Chris asking if Stiles’ dad is all right and Stiles’ dad telling him to not use a broken arm, what is he, insane? And then Stiles’ dad comes out and he’s grumpy for all of a second before Stiles looks up, and then his shoulders sag.

“Can we just—let’s just go over here,” Stiles’ dad says, tugging them past Deaton and Allison—who looks a little suspicious, and clearly wants to go check on her dad, but can’t find a good break in Deaton’s laundry list of things to watch out for—and into a small alcove. And then he hunches his shoulders and twists up his mouth and generally is just as much of a depressed puppet as Chris normally is. “All right. So…”

“So you went and put the loci in loci,” Stiles says.

His dad winces. “Stiles, honestly, it wasn’t on purpose, and I didn’t even realize till a few—till just recently. And…and yeah, I’m sorry.”

“If that’s for doing what we’re supposed to do, Dad, seriously? I’m not going to blame you for that, that’s just stupid,” Stiles says. He pauses, and then jabs his father in the stomach, hard. “But the whole not telling me thing, that is not cool. Not cool at all.”

“I know. I was going to, I just…couldn’t really figure out how to bring it up. And then this whole courtship thing started up, and I didn’t want you to get confused about that just because you feel like you have to stay with me,” his father says. “Because you don’t. You’re…you’re ready, you know. I’m not, I want to be selfish and keep you around, but you don’t need to. You’re ready to go on your own, Stiles, and I’m not your dad if I hold you back.”

Stiles just—he jabs his father again, and then hits the idiot on the shoulders, with the heels of his hands. And then he wraps his arms around the man and hugs him tight. “ _Dad_. You never do that. And…and yeah, but maybe I don’t want to leave?”

“But you don’t like it here, Stiles,” his dad says. “You’ve been complaining nonstop since we got here.”

“That doesn’t mean I _hate_ it,” Stiles says. “I mean, Dad, it’s me, I always…you know, I get picky and I whine and I just like to point out all the sucky things and…and…and…”

His father hugs him for another second, and then pushes him back at arms-length for a good, long, slightly suspicious look. “So. You do like it here.”

“I…well, I haven’t really seen much, we’ve been so busy getting the garden up and running,” Stiles says.

“And Peter,” his dad says. “If you stay, you’ll have to deal with him. Which isn’t to say that you _have_ to say yes to him, Stiles, because you don’t and I will make sure of that. But he’ll be around, and you’ll have to put up with him.”

“Oh, yeah, I know, but he’s just one werewolf, Dad,” Stiles says. “Though speaking of…so I guess you, um, came out to find me when I skipped lunch?”

His father looks even more suspicious. “Actually, Peter came over to wait for you at the garden. He wouldn’t say what’d happened, aside from there being some misunderstanding, but when you didn’t show up on time he got worried. And then his sister came over to get him, because they’d picked up signs of those alphas, and he insisted we go out and get you immediately.”

“Oh,” Stiles says.

“Not that I wasn’t worried, too, but usually I don’t need to think about whether you remembered your machete,” his father says dryly. “Or your protective charms. Or your—”

“Okay, okay, I was distracted, all right?” Stiles says, shoving at his dad. “But look, I’m fine, we have homicidal alphas still running around, shouldn’t we do something about that and then deal with all the other stuff?”

“Yeah,” his dad says after a moment. He’s reluctant about it, and still eyeing Stiles a little, but from the sound of things, Allison’s finally gotten away from Deaton and is arguing with her father about him trying to move, and it’s making Stiles’ dad anxious. “Yeah, true. Which is why we are going to sit here, and wait for Alpha Hale and the rest of the elders, and then come up with a plan together. Right?”

“Dad,” Stiles says, blinking hard. “I don’t know what you’re saying, except that I’d better hustle out and throw together a nice fruit bowl for our guests. Right?”

His father looks at him. Raises one hand, then changes his mind and just rubs at his forehead. “Stiles, just…whatever you do, don’t do it just because you think you have to. Do what you think is right. That’s all I ask.”

“I know, Dad,” Stiles says, smiling, and for a second his dad just smiles back at him. “Right thing, not rules thing, got it. Fruit bowl coming up!”

His dad opens his mouth, then closes it. “Hell,” he mutters as Stiles slips off. “I’m going to regret that.”

* * *

Stiles does, in fact, put together a basket of fruit for their guests. It’s a very nice basket. He leaves it on the back doorstep and he’s sneaking off when the door swings open and Allison, crossbow in hand, glowers at him.

“I thought you’d want to stay with your dad?” Stiles says.

Allison rolls her eyes. “When he’s already sitting with your dad and Alpha Hale? I love Scott, but we have to talk about what he’s been telling you about me.”

“Sure, happy to,” Stiles says, and then he makes her boost him first over the garden wall, right where he usually puts the snare. It’s his plan, after all, and if she wants to be treated like she’s got skills, then she can use said skills.

Stiles does pause at the top to pull her up and onto the wall next to him, and then he looks down the other side. It’s empty, not even a shadow out of place around the thorn bushes, and he frowns. Then rolls his eyes.

“Peter, seriously, if you’re not here, it is _totally_ off,” Stiles says.

Allison frowns at him, but before she can say anything, Peter whisks out of nowhere, a wide, amused, ever-so-slightly foolish smile on his face. “Well, I didn’t want to make any more assumptions,” he says. “That hasn’t panned out very successfully for me so far.”

“Oh, whatever, you were totally assuming you could just sneak in again and eavesdrop on the elders and just shut up and tell us how the hell you got across the thorns,” Stiles hisses. “Or else I am going to yell for your sister and tell her all about the strawberries.”

Peter stares at him for a second. It’s…it’s _shiny_ , how the man’s looking at him, and it does odd things to Peter’s face. Shaves off the perpetual air of confidence, and underneath he’s…he’s older, sure, but he’s still just as curious as Stiles. He’s just as easily wounded, too, wearing that confidence because he needs the shield, and yet, he can’t help but keep trying, even when it hurts. And can’t help showing it, when he sees something that makes him happy.

“You’re blackmailing me,” he says, absolutely delighted. “You’re blackmailing me, _after_ guessing my point of entry, and hijacking my idea for your plan and Stiles, honestly, can’t you see how perfect we are for each other?”

A couple other werewolves have melted out behind Peter, and they all look varying degrees of nauseated. “This is so not right,” mutters Peter’s nephew whatever his name.

“Shut up, Derek,” Peter says, pulling off his clothes. He’s still beaming, and when he shakes himself into wolf form, he adds a lolling tongue and a wagging tail to it.

Peter backs up a few feet, tail beating madly from side to side, and then launches himself forward. He easily clears the bushes, landing with three paws on the top of the wall like he’s a great cat instead of a wolf, and then he pulls up that last foot and somehow pivots on the narrow space to offer his back to Stiles.

Stiles puts one hand on Peter’s shoulder, then stops and looks at Allison. Who considers it, then the other werewolves—Scott’s there, and he twitches, then takes a deep breath and pulls up his chin. Allison makes a face, then slings her crossbow over her back. 

“Just catch me,” she says, before Scott can shift, and then does a soaring flip off the wall.

Scott yelps and runs forward, and yanks her the rest of the way, so she lands on him a couple inches short of the thorn bushes. They look…good with that, so Stiles shrugs and gets onto Peter’s back, and then fists his hands in Peter’s ruff as Peter gracefully leaps down, a whole yard clear, and…weirdly, plops right down on his belly. Stiles isn’t sure if that’s Peter’s way of letting him get off—especially since when he tries to do that, Peter whines in protest. So Stiles sits back down and Peter puts his head on his paws, his tail still thumping happily.

“Ew,” says his…niece? Damn, Stiles is going to have to start learning their names now. “Uncle Peter, I am so not old enough for this.”

“Okay, whatever you are arguing about…whatever,” Stiles says. Peter’s actually pretty comfortable to sit on, but yeah, maybe not the right time for that. He gets off, and then smacks Peter’s nose away from his hip so that he can tug his wrap down his legs. “Those alphas who tried to eat me.”

“I heard our dads talking it over,” Allison immediately says. “They think the leader, Deucalion, thinks that you’re the guardians here, so he went after you to make sure your dad stayed out of it, and then he’s going after the rest of us.”

“Deucalion’s come after us before, he just doesn’t give up,” pipes up Derek, looking immensely more comfortable with this conversation. “Usually we run him off to the border, but I think Mom’s fed up this time. So don’t worry about it, we’ll keep it in the woods and you don’t need to see anything.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Do I look like a baby lamb or something? I’m not going to faint at the sight of blood. Also, they tried to _eat_ me. I take offense, okay, we’re not _literally_ what we eat. Though come to think of it, a couple more veggies might be good for them, vitamin deficiencies and aggressive behavior and all.”

Realization dawns on Scott’s face, followed by dread. He quickly raises his hand, but not before Peter, who’s rolled back to human and who is still not bothering with clothing, can butt in. 

“Stiles, that’s really not necessary,” he says, with an earnestness that has his relatives looking nervously at each other. “It’s completely our fault that they’re here, it’s nothing to do with you. You don’t need to dirty your hands with it.”

“Okay, I think we just…let’s back up here,” Stiles sighs. He wasn’t really planning on doing this with an audience, but…well, exigent circumstances and guilt looks really weird on Peter’s face and also, it feels really weird, like a big iron clamp in Stiles’ chest, and not in a good way. “I was being a judgmental asshole, and while I’m allowed to judge, it should be on individual situations and not sweeping generalizations. And I don’t automatically have the moral high ground just because I grow stuff and you kill stuff. Sorry.”

Peter blinks hard. He sits up, his arms straight down, knees folded up to either side of them, faintly wolfy even unshifted, but the spark of hope in his eyes is undiluted human.

“On the other hand, if you want to impress me, maybe don’t start off by being a jackass who seems like he’s motivated by sex and easy living and then expect me to believe you when you completely flip that on its head,” Stiles adds. “Because community gardens and hunting aren’t mutually exclusive, but at the end of the day, Dad and me are genii loci and we take our chosen place very seriously. _Very_ seriously.”

“Stiles,” Scott starts, shifting uneasily. “Um. Speaking of your dad, maybe we should—”

“So maybe I would have an easier time not condemning all hunters out of hand if you people hadn’t spent nine months acting like we’re just a free buffet,” Stiles says, as Peter starts to grin and Scott drops his face into his hands and everybody else looks very confused. He stoops over and roots around till he can get a handful of dirt. “Sure, I like seeing people enjoy what we grow, but it’s not actually easier to stay in one place and make that happen compared to roaming after prey herds. They’re both a lot of hard work.”

“I completely understand,” Peter says. Then his grin fades a little, and his head ducks slightly, though he doesn’t lose eye-contact with Stiles. On the contrary, he’s staring harder than he’s ever stared when willing Stiles’ clothes off him, and he’s not looking at anything below Stiles’ chin. “And I’m sorry too. I’ve—I’ve done a poor job of representing us to you, as well as myself, and…and an even poorer one of fulfilling the one thing you asked of us, which was having an open mind about your ways.”

“Yeah, well, plants, I guess they’re hard to make look exciting,” Stiles sighs. He passes the dirt from hand to hand for a couple seconds, then opens his fingers and lets it fall out. Then he dusts his hands briskly off on his hips. “So last thing, let’s just try and remember that self-defense is not a culturally-specific concept, and just because Dad and I aren’t about the vendettas doesn’t mean we don’t get angry.”

Scott tries one last time. “Stiles, don’t you think we should wait for your dad?”

“Oh, we’re gonna,” Stiles says, straightening up. “I said no rushing to judgment, didn’t I? So _just_ because they tried to eat me, and we had to kill two of them before they backed off, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t carefully consider what to do before we kill the rest of them.”

He doesn’t feel that different or anything, but then, that’s normal. The thing about genii loci, which is why they’re always getting underrated, is that building a sense of place takes time. It’s a lot of little things, day after day. Getting up and walking over the same paths, tending the same rows as the plants in them sprout and grow and are harvested and then rooted out for the next crop, a little different but it’s the same cycle. Meeting the same people at the market, learning that they like carrots this size or red onions over white while they tell you about what’s happened in their life since the last week. The news is rarely big or dramatic, but it’s the small changes that carry you in between the big ones, anyway.

Running into the same stupid werewolf over and over again, and maybe he and Stiles didn’t do a lot of talking—well, okay, maybe he wasn’t saying much that Stiles thought he needed to listen to—but there’s something in getting familiar with how he looks when he’s just gotten himself out of the snare and is about to push Stiles into the grass, all breathless and anticipating. And how his hands feel taking off Stiles’ wrap, and how he makes little rumbling noises in his chest afterward, rubbing his cheek against Stiles’ shoulder like a cat. It’s not just talk that makes a place.

So Stiles _stretches_ , feeling into the earth and the water and the roots, the broad leaves and the fragile flowers and the heavy fruit, the air and even the faint wisp of the fading daylight, and it’s not spectacular. It’s like he just reaches a little farther, like the difference between pulling on his usual wrap and pulling on one that’s a little longer. And just like that, he feels the whole place.

“Did you just kill them?” Scott sighs.

“Scott, bro, it’s not like I get to be king of the forest,” Stiles snorts. “I just get this place right here. And last I checked, those assholes were out there somewhere, in the woods. Now, certain people have pointed out that there’s a lot of promise in them there trees, and it’s definitely something I want to look into, but right now…right now I just have right here. And, say, this giant sinkhole.”

“What sink—” Allison says, and then she turns around at the sound of groaning earth. Her eyes widen. “Oh. That one.”

Stiles goes up to the hole and peers in, then drops the bottom a few more feet. “Nice, isn’t it? Too bad I don’t have anything to put into it.”

“Ah. Yes, well…” Peter shuffles up on his knees and takes Stiles’ hand in his for a second. He smiles up at Stiles, then kisses the back of Stiles’ hand. “Let me see what I can do about that. I believe we’re at that stage of courting anyway.”

Then he backs off. He twists over, comes up a wolf, and then he and the other werewolves lope off, tracking around the sinkhole and melting into the woods. They’re barking and yipping to each other, breaking off into coordinated groups, and for a second Stiles kind of wants to go out there, after them, and see what they’re going to do. He’s never seen the attraction in just running around after things, but…maybe he just hasn’t been looking at it right.

“So…I guess the whole leaving at winter thing is off?” Allison says. She hikes up her dress and unslings her crossbow from her back, and then she and Stiles take a seat near the sinkhole.

“Looks like it,” Stiles says. He puts his hands down on the ground and leans on them, and admires his sinkhole. And then he lifts his hands and looks at the woods. And then sighs. “Okay. So this thing that happened between your dad and my dad—”

“We gotta figure out what it was, I’ve been dying for _months_ now,” Allison agrees. She tucks her skirt a little more closely around her legs, and then props her chin on her hands. “Ideas?”

Stiles ponders. “I wonder if I can add a stage to werewolf courting?” he says. “Prove you’re invested in my family by sorting out their issues? Though he’s going to argue he already did that, I bet…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A genius loci is originally an entity from ancient Roman mythology, and was the "guardian" or "spirit" of a particular location, which wasn't necessarily connected to agriculture, or even rural (plenty of urban examples), but thanks to Alexander Pope, the abstract concept of a _genius loci_ became tightly associated with landscape architecture. And mostly, I took that as a starting point and then made up a ton of my own internal mythology, so this in no way is intended to accurately refer to either of those sources.
> 
> The hip wraps--I'm picturing Stiles and his father as coming from warmer areas, and so they dress a bit like those loincloth/man-skirt things the ancient Egyptians wore, both to add to the fantasy vibe and just because the fanservice amuses me.


	2. Epilogue 1: Stiles and Peter and Winter Strawberries

Well, winter isn’t really a hard-and-fast break in the growing season, what with the invention of hothouses at all. Sure, they’re not going to produce anything like the same quantity, but they’re more than good enough for tiding a community over during the cold months.

Even if Stiles is going to have to write off this whole shed’s worth of strawberries. He keeps looping vines over and around Peter, but the jerk keeps squirming free. “It’s very annoying,” Stiles says, as he tightens the latest net of green tendrils over the moaning, shivering werewolf. “I mean, fine, you’re in heat, but you’re with it enough to want the other dildo, you’re totally with it enough to stop pulling up my plants.”

So interesting lesson about werewolves. They’re pretty relaxed about casual sex, hence Stiles’ initial impression that Peter wasn’t looking for anything other than a fling, but positions do mean something. Like, a beta fucking somebody is no big deal, and neither’s mutually rubbing off or anything like that, but a beta taking a cock, that’s different. Something to do with heat-bonds, even though those aren’t cast in stone or anything.

Anyway, so they mixed it up pretty evenly before Peter started up with the whole courting thing, and Stiles was more than happy with that. Genii loci don’t really care, any position is a good position. And even afterward, when Stiles finally gave in and nipped Peter one on the throat while they were rolling around in Stiles’ favorite flower bed, it’s not like it’s bad. Peter flopping onto his stomach or his back, it’s all pretty, flat belly and muscled back and quivering thighs, flexing away underneath. His eyes rolling back into his head, his claws jammed into the ground or a convenient tree trunk, and the way he relaxes after the head of Stiles’ cock wedges into him, the noises he makes, those are almost more obscene than the actual sex. And man, the whole falling asleep on Stiles’ cock, his slack body just folding gradually around it so that when Stiles finally pulls out, he _whines_ for it back.

Yeah, so it’s not like Stiles minds screwing him. Stiles actually likes it very, very much. It’s just, well, sometimes Stiles would like it the other way around too. And especially after handling two straight days of Peter’s heat, where he basically wants Stiles to live in his ass.

Peter whimpers and twists at the vines, but either he’s finally slowing down, or Stiles has figured out how many to wrap around him, because they don’t give an inch. He sucks in his breath a little, feeling that, straining up as hard as he can. He’s covered in dirt, dirt and sticky streaks of red and faint green and white, berries and stem juice and come, and he’s still so pale under the tendrils. Trembling into their net, pressing himself till the skin right under blushes fiercely from the pressure, and then he goes slack.

Just a limp, sprawled body on the ground. Rick dark earth under him, green, green vines over and around him. His head’s tucked partly under a thick bush and the leaves are bright and shiny against his sweat-matted hair, so wet the curls have draggled into waves. Stiles slides over his back, petting at his hips, his thighs, and Peter starts to move again, pulling his head out, showing closed eyes and open, lipping mouth, moaning as Stiles slips one hand down and rocks the dildo in his ass.

“I don’t want that one, it’s not just that, it’s I don’t _want_ one,” Peter mutters. He’s rocking up against Stiles, trying to spread his legs and move his arms from where they’re knotted under him, and he’s so tired he’s getting part of a leaf in his mouth when he talks, and can’t move enough to spit it out. But he’s still trying. “Cock, want your cock, Stiles, come on, please, you like fucking me.”

“You totally didn’t mention you’re a whiny little heat baby when you were courting,” Stiles snorts. He wedges his finger down next to the dildo—which is really nice, he spent a month carving and sanding and polishing it, with tons of personal testing—and scrapes his nail over the stretched rim of Peter’s hole.

Peter bucks heavily, then slumps down, panting. He’s temporarily speechless, long enough for Stiles to get the vines to roll him over onto his back. His head falls and he moans urgently, snapping a few vines as he tries to hitch up his knees. Stiles frowns, loops a few more to hold Peter’s legs down and apart, and then he crawls back onto the man.

The vines are so thick across Peter’s chest, keeping his arms wrapped across it, that Stiles can barely see any skin. They thin out over his belly, then curl away, leaving Peter’s hard, weeping cock nice and clear. Well, aside from a cluster of strawberries hanging right over Peter’s balls, and Stiles laughs, shakes his head. Picks one and eats it, as Peter finally gets his eyes cracked open.

Peter takes a second to put it all together, and then he stiffens as a shudder rolls over him from splayed knees to lolling head. He whines, arching his neck. Stiles laughs again, because honestly, he didn’t do the berries and he wonders if the plants are just getting a mind of their own, with how often he and Peter fuck around them.

And then he lazes down on top of his werewolf, still chuckling as he nuzzles through the tickling leaves, the sticky patches of juice streaking Peter’s neck. He wraps his hand around Peter’s cock, adjusting for the abrupt rise of Peter’s hips, and then he puts his other hand down, picks another berry. Arches to rub himself all over Peter as he brings that arm up and dangles the strawberry in front of Peter’s mouth.

“Refreshment break,” Stiles says. He pokes the berry at Peter’s lips, then dodges as Peter tries to duck past it and kiss him instead. “No, no, eat it, plenty of liquids and electrolytes, all the stuff I read about werewolf heat was very clear on that—”

Peter snarls at him, and Stiles just smashes the strawberry right onto the nearest fang. Then he covers Peter’s mouth with his hand and drops his head into the curve of Peter’s neck, sucking at it, as Peter’s snarl goes to a moan, and then to a messy series of sucks and loud licks as Peter tries to get the strawberry off his tooth. His cock jerks in Stiles’ hand, hot as summer sun, leaking precome as badly as any overripe fruit that’s split its skin leaks juice.

“This isn’t fair,” Peter pants. He laps at his stained lips, and then groans as Stiles finally kisses him, nibbling at the berry remnants in his mouth. “I didn’t—didn’t know genii loci—had anything to do with—if I’d known—”

“Oh, come on, Peter,” Stiles says, pushing himself up on one arm. He braces himself against Peter’s chest, feeling the man’s fingers wiggling just a thin mat of vines away, and then he groans as he sinks back onto Peter’s cock. “We grow stuff. Fertility cycles. Reproduction, blah blah. You didn’t see the sex magic coming, you just have yourself to blame.”

Peter’s a little busy crying out and shaking to answer. And to be honest, Stiles is not really in a talking mood either. Man, he’s missed having a good cock to ride.

But he’s not totally an asshole, and he does try to see the werewolf side of things now, even if he doesn’t completely feel it. So when he’s done, he climbs off and rolls Peter onto his side, and then gives Peter what he wants: takes out the knotting dildo and tucks his cock balls-deep into the other man, till Peter is comfortably full of it, purring brokenly in between satisfied sighs.

“Anyway, you want strawberries in January, you gotta give a little,” Stiles mutters into the back of Peter’s neck. He shifts his arms where they’re draped down over Peter’s chest, feeling the vines rustle, and then stops when he just realizes that Peter’s wiggling out his fingers to wrap over Stiles’ wrists. “Should’ve stuck to stealing if you didn’t want to work for it.”

“Mmm. Tempting, but…” Peter stretches lazily, then slumps back, his nape arched a little into Stiles’ mouth. “…I think in this case, legitimate enterprise…much more attractive.”

Stiles smiles, nuzzling closer. “So you don’t mind that you’re still finding out stuff?”

“Not at all. Courtship’s just a start, Stiles,” Peter murmurs. “If I never found out anything new after that…well, that’d be just terrible. We’d be horribly bored, don’t you think?”

“True,” Stiles says. And then Peter shifts again, his buttocks hitching sluggishly but with purpose, and Stiles snorts and pushes Peter back onto his belly. “Speaking of, I guess we’d better go back to seeing who’s got the better stamina, hunters or farmers.”

Peter groans, half in protest, half in encouragement. “I thought we’d agreed that it wasn’t a—a _competition_ —not healthy—”

“There’s nothing unhealthy about a _little_ competition,” Stiles says. He takes a second to adjust to the new position, absently tugging at the vines laced over Peter’s back. And yeah, okay, drawing on them for more energy. They’re all getting binned anyway, he might as well get all the use he can out of them. “Besides, it’s scientific exploration too! And you’re for that, come on, you know that.”

Whimpering, fresh sweat beading up at his temples as the heat takes him again, Peter manages one short nod. And then he and Stiles, they both fall back into the fragrant crush of the berry-laden vines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...couldn't help digressing a little bit on comparative sexual practices again, with the worldbuilding.


	3. Epilogue 2: The Whole John and Chris Mystery

“Oh,” Chris says, caught mid-limp, awkwardly gripping at the linen wrap that’s sliding off his hips because it is _clearly_ sized for somebody with a heavier build. Not to mention that Chris normally wears trousers like the rest of the locals.

Well, honestly, since winter’s come, Stiles and his dad have had to switch to trousers too, but they still throw on the wraps when they’re just in the house. And Stiles was just getting up for some water, seeing as gorging on strawberries only goes so far, and anyway, lugging a purring but absolutely legless Peter back to the house after heat makes him very thirsty. But if Chris is going to stand there in his dad’s wrap, covered in bite-marks and bruises and what looks like a medium case of tree bark rash, Stiles is going to forget about the water for a few minutes.

“Okay, I know we’re pretty much cool now and you’re even letting Scott and Allison date without having to sneak around, but that’s why I _have_ to know what you and Dad did the first time you met,” Stiles blurts out. “I have to. I have to work with the…the…were they the apples you were jumpstarting? They were giving Dad and me problems the whole first season—”

“I think those should be fine now, Chris and I used some of his old birding nets to brace the branches better,” Stiles’ dad breaks in, ducking past Chris’ elbow while Chris winces and flushes and totally instinctively looks at him instead of at the safe far wall. “Also, Stiles, I don’t think—”

“I’m gonna be wondering the _entire_ time I’m grafting and pruning and picking,” Stiles says, jabbing his finger at his _father’s_ tree bark rash. They’re genii loci, they’re not even supposed to get that. “And you know what happens when I wonder, Dad. So if you don’t tell me, I refuse to be held responsible for—”

“It wasn’t—” Chris starts. He looks at Stiles’ dad again, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck, and then he sighs. “It wasn’t that big of a deal, Stiles. He just…”

Stiles’ father glares at him, while reaching over and putting a hand on Chris’ shoulder. “I was walking up to check how the streams feed into our water supply, and I ran across him dealing with an omega.”

“Look, I was smacking them around,” Chris mutters. “Wasn’t planning on doing anything but running them off, after figuring out whether they were alone, but—”

“And I get that they have to protect their borders, but the omega hadn’t done anything except come into their territory, so I stepped in and sent the omega off and Chris and I talked about it,” Stiles’ father says, in a funny, kind of constricted voice.

“So you scared off the omega and you tied Chris to something and you lectured him,” Stiles translates after a second’s thought. “What’d you lecture him with? Did you pull out the stuff on false imprisonment? Or, oh, I bet you went with the stuff about how fear actually reinforces negative instincts, right? The stuff on dog training from that other genius loci we met? The abuse of dominance structures? The merits of due process? The unreliability of information obtained via coercive methods?”

Chris blinks hard, then turns. “Do you do that a lot?” he asks Stiles’ wincing father.

Stiles snaps his fingers. “All of them. All of them, and…and wow, you just sat there for it? Usually people start screaming and saying they’ll do whatever so he’ll stop.”

“Well, it was—he had good points, and I hadn’t thought of some of it before, and I just…I just…it seemed like he was worth listening to,” Chris mutters. He’s blushing again, blushing and scratching the side of his face and staring at his feet. And then he looks over and Stiles isn’t sure what the man had planned to do, but Chris clearly forgets all about it when he sees how Stiles’ dad is looking at him.

“Stiles,” his dad says, still looking at Chris. “Please tell me you’re done now.”

“Um, well, I needed some water, actually…and oh, look, a pitcher!” Stiles grabs that, then backpeddles out of the kitchen and all the way back to his bedroom.

Peter sleepily raises his head out of the sheets. “Hmmm?”

“Chris is in love with my dad’s lecturing,” Stiles says, climbing in next to him. He wiggles out of his hip wrap, then half-heartedly pushes at the hand Peter promptly wraps around his buttock. Then gives up and just throws his arm around Peter’s neck, smushing his werewolf’s head back into his shoulder. “Never mind, it’s fine. Also, the apples are gonna be nice this year. How do you feel about apples?”

“Mmm, tasty, but I like strawberries better,” Peter murmurs, lipping at Stiles’ collarbone.

Stiles rolls his eyes, then snuggles his face into Peter’s hair. “One-track mind.”

“Focus,” Peter corrects. “I hunt, after all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles says, drifting off. “Good thing I plant, then.”

“A _very_ good thing,” Peter says, kissing his jaw. “A very good thing indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, obviously, based on my TW repertoire, I like Chris with submissive tendencies. But also I can't help but think that Chris would really appreciate somebody who's really sat down and thought through all the morally ambiguous stuff and struggled with sorting out his principles too (because just by virtue of raising Stiles, John's gonna be fielding those talks) and would totally not see it as a boring lecture at all. He'd just be super-impressed that somebody's gone and taken all the stuff he internalizes and can calmly verbalize it.


End file.
